Leader: 'Happiness survey' an expensive waste of our money

As an exercise in the banal, futile, and pointless, the new "happiness survey" being championed by David Cameron will take some beating.

It is months ago since he launched this whimsical big idea, and now we know, at last, what the questions are which will be posed to help shape Coalition policies to make us happier.

Are you satisfied with your life? How well educated are you? Do you trust politicians and your local council?

These are just some of the things people will be asked. Then somebody is going to compile and analyse all the answers and, presumably, report back on how happy, or unhappy, we all are.

To look on the positive side, it will keep somebody busy. But the results will be so difficult to interpret as to be essentially meaningless and worthless.

One of the questions which strains credulity will ask people how satisfied they are with their spouse.

For a start, it is not the government's business. And people may be delighted with their spouse, but if they are living in grinding poverty how can you judge if they are happy or just making the best of the situation?

With the GDP figures out today, Mr Cameron has been getting a pretty good indication of how happy we are going to be in the future.

Job losses, pay freezes and pay cuts, price rises, soaring energy bills... these are the sort of things which are measurable and have a real impact on the lives of ordinary people.

Rather than wasting time with irrelevant and nebulous surveys which cost money we do not have, what will make people happier is an improvement on the economic front and the sense that politicians are working for the betterment of the country and doing the best job they can.