Happiness league tables

My latest article on Spiked argues that global happiness league tables reveal more about the prejudices of their compilers than about the inhabitants of different countries. Its starting point is the complete contrast in different global league tables of happiness.

Meanwhile, a YouGov poll quoted in today’s Financial Times found that middle class people living in the south-west of England where the happiest in the country (“South-west comes out smiling in happiness poll”). In contrast, their counterparts in the south-east are the most miserable. Seems it is hard to move nowadays without coming across a happiness researcher.