Just skimming the Gummer-Goldsmith Quality of Life Report. It is hard to swallow. Some of it is plain bonkers. Prima facie the 547 page document means that Michael Foot’s 1983 Labour party manifesto is no longer the “longest suicide note in history”…

++ Updating ++

Bonkers idea #1 : The report recommends using something called the “Happy Planet Index” rather than GDP as measure of wellbeing. This has been devised by the New Economics Foundation – the home of some of wonk-land’s maddest ideas.

The HPI is a composite index. To give you a flavour of the objective nature of the index you should understand that Iran scores 53 on the HPI and the United States of America only 28. Must be all those public executions that make them so happy in Iran. Maybe the women are smiling under their burqas…

Bonkers idea #2 : Dizzy is worked up about the Zero-Carbon dildo idea in Zac’s magazine, one bonkers idea that didn’t make the report.