A woman awaits the papers at a Middlesbrough and East Cleveland Count. Photo: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

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12 May 2015

Mourning the election? Even a bad result cheers you up

Studies show that populations are happier when they can choose things - including the government.

Here’s a handy scientific fact to bear in mind if the election has turned out badly for you: that there was an election at all to get unhappy about has already increased your levels of happiness.

In a paper published last month, Ruut Veenhoven of Erasmus University in Rotterdam took stock of the 23,000 research findings on happiness published since the 1970s. One central insight was that having opportunities to choose things in life increases happiness. In developed countries, political freedom has stronger links to happiness than economic freedom.

The study of happiness is a surprisingly fruitful area of research and it is having some success in infiltrating politics. David Cameron has been known to discuss the idea that politicians should work to increase what he terms “general well-being”. Maybe that’s to be expected: politicians want to make you happy, after all, even if no one since Nye Bevan has actually pulled it off. Nonetheless, the Labour peer Richard Layard, who works at the London School of Economics, has suggested that government policy should be guided by the research literature on happiness. A policy, he says, should be chosen for its effect on contentment rather than its perceived economic value.

It is important to appreciate that we won’t all be equally happy. Veenhoven’s paper points out that the average happiness score in Denmark, one of the top four happy nations, was 8.1 out of ten in a 2008 survey. But a tenth of the population scored itself at five or less. In Zimbabwe, then the least happy country, 14 per cent of the people were still as happy as the average Dane.

Yet the difference in happiness between citizens is getting smaller. You won’t be shocked to learn that happiness rises as inequality falls. Having less to envy increases your well-being. As a result of a general fall in inequality across the world, we are, as a species, happier than ever.

So, where to go from here? Scientists have some tips: they have found that you can make yourself happier by spending time with family members, distracting yourself from negative thoughts and allowing yourself to dwell on your emotions for a couple of minutes a day. Social relationships are also hugely beneficial to your well-being. For all the health advice about alcohol, going out for a drink with friends is probably better for you than abstemiously staying at home.

Puzzles remain. One is whether long-term happiness growth is sustainable. Self-reported happiness is a predictor of longevity but increased longevity correlates with the incidence of cancer and dementia. A Saga survey released last year showed that these are the illnesses we fear most. It may be that fear and happiness will one day cancel out each other’s growth.

Second, Veenhoven’s report shows that the number of scientific articles on happiness published each year has been growing at an enormous rate since the 1960s. However, there was a conspicuous ten-year downturn from 1980. Why did the reigns of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan stop us researching happiness?

A third unknown is that no one has data on the happiness of North Koreans. They don’t take part in surveys of this kind.

Here’s a question to discuss at your happiness-boosting post-election drinks party: should we have ministers for happiness and well-being? And how quickly after they read their first set of briefing papers will they resign to spend more time with their family?

› The long road back: how can Labour win again?

Michael Brooks holds a PhD in quantum physics. He writes a weekly science column for the New Statesman, and his most recent book is At the Edge of Uncertainty: 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise.

This article first appeared in the 06 May 2015 issue of the New Statesman, The Power Struggle

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The Staggers

22 November 2016

This is Theresa May's last chance to rescue the child abuse inquiry

A seventh lawyer has quit the investigation.

When is a crisis not a crisis? After the departure of seven senior lawyers, three chairs, several survivors’ groups, £15m of public money, two years and little progress to show for it, Theresa May and her Home secretary are increasingly lone voices in their insistence that all is well on the child abuse inquiry that May, as Home secretary, rightly established in the wake of distressing revelations about Jimmy Savile.

It was always a daunting and complex task to shine a spotlight into institutions characterised by secrecy and cover up, where abusers were able to operate in plain sight without challenge or consequence. The inquiry spans decades, covers hundreds of institutions and relies on the accounts of many survivors who have struggled on for years without support. Now they must face the prospect of detailing abuse at the hands of the powerful, to the powerful. How to find a chair with the legal expertise and commitment to command the confidence of survivors, the public and the inquiry staff, a person with vast experience but without personal connections to the accused?

And yet it has been done. In Australia, a Royal Commission has begun to uncover the truth since it was set up in 2013. By contrast, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has been dogged by problems since the outset, losing its first two chairs within months because of connections to the accused, before being re-established on a statutory footing. The appointment of its third chair, Dame Lowell Goddard, was so rushed and confused that the Home Affairs Committee took the unusual step of releasing a report criticising May for potentially bringing “the whole process into disrepute”.

More worryingly, MPs said she was “not displaying the openness and transparency we would expect from the Home Secretary”. From the start it was unclear how appointments were made and how much key officials were paid. Over a year later when staff came forward to accuse Lowell Goddard of racism, bullying and non-attendance - claims she strongly denies – it became apparent that neither she, nor anyone else, will appear before Parliament to answer questions about it.

It has left a yawning gap in accountability, filled not by her, nor apparently by the fourth chair, Alexis Jay, who has asked the Home Affairs Committee to “consider carefully” before calling her to give evidence on the inquiry’s important work. Who will be held accountable for the ongoing dysfunction that left key members of the panel struggling to work with the chair, for significant sums of public money spent on salary, expenses and payoffs and for the apparent failure to investigate alleged disclosures of sexual harassment?

Not the Home secretary, nor the Prime Minister, apparently, who set up and have presided over this chaos but repeatedly refuse to discuss the inquiry, stressing its independence. The Home secretary must not interfere with the Inquiry’s investigation, but she is the only person with the power to hire and fire the chair and her department is responsible for its budget and staffing and supplies a fifth of its staff. The Permanent secretary meets with the Inquiry secretary regularly but says he only “formally” read about these serious, longstanding problems from a report in the newspapers. Meanwhile the Home secretary and Prime Minister appeared to suggest they had no knowledge of the problems that had emerged, only later to confirm that they did. For child abuse survivors this is too familiar a story. Independence cannot become a smokescreen or as we have seen, history repeats itself.

In the past week there have been calls by survivors’ groups for Professor Jay to resign. A seventh senior lawyer has quit amid reported concerns about leadership. The Home secretary has the legal right and a moral duty to investigate. Without delay she must establish whether the Chair and panel have the expertise, skills, willingness to challenge power and working relationships for the inquiry to succeed. But most of all she should learn from the mistakes of the last two years. The problems with this inquiry did not begin with the appointment of Jay and even if she leaves, they will not end. We need a detailed plan for how the inquiry will focus its resources and begin to make progress. This includes a commitment to transparency, including honesty about mistakes made in the past and a clear, published whistle-blower policy that guarantees concerns will be heard and acted upon. This may be uncomfortable for the Prime Minister but it is simply asking her to put survivors’ and the public interests before her own, and that is in itself a test of leadership.

Meanwhile as she stalls, those who have willed the inquiry to fail gather conviction. And as the clock ticks, many survivors wonder if they will live to see the truth emerge. This feels like Theresa May’s last chance to rescue the inquiry she set up. Will she?

Lisa Nandy is the MP for Wigan. She was formerly Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.