Happy? You can barely crack a smile...

LIFE, AND OTHER BITS:

DOESN’T it feel as though the Joker has taken over Gotham City?

We are to get rid of a third of our police force; criminals are being released from prison, not because they have promised to be good but because there is not enough room to keep them locked up; thousands of people are about to lose their jobs and university fees are so high that thousands of young people will be prevented from leaving home and hiding in the pub for three years until the crisis passes.

I don’t know about the recipe for a crime wave, it sounds like a crime tsunami. And just to show that the lunatics really have taken over the asylum, the Prime Minister is conducting research to find out how happy we are.

All he needs to do is to walk round any town centre anywhere and take a look at the faces of the people. I know we are generally a miserable lot (especially when it rains) and that anyone walking about wearing a permanent smile would almost certainly be locked up, but these are not happy times.

Short of adding marijuana to the reservoirs — unlike chlorine it won’t clean your teeth but it might make you show them in a rather stupid grin a lot more — there is no quick fix for happiness and its little sister, wellbeing (whatever that means). Cameron demonstrates where he stands in the league table of ordinary folk when he tells us that happiness can’t be measured in money.

“There’s more to life than money.” His millions, however, do seem to put a smile on those chubby cheeks.

National happiness is measured in surroundings, culture and relationships says our gold-plated leader, ignoring the fact that the surroundings, lack of culture and relationships of the hard-up, penny counters are not a house in the country, a night at the opera or a happy marriage supported by nannies, servants and lackeys.



ONE of the few pieces of really good news to come out of the bankruptcy of the nation is that the outrageous racket of no-win, no-fee legal aid that has kept Messrs Grabit, Keepit and Spendit in clover for decades is being cut.

The system currently costs the taxpayers £2.1 billion a year and explains why the number of barristers nationally has risen from 2,000 in 1960 to a huge and hugely wealthy 15,000 now.

Health authorities, local councils and others have found it cheaper to settle complaints out of court than risk getting lumbered with having to pay the costs of both sides, plus damages insurance, to claimants’ legal teams.

The compensation culture as well as costing us billions in claims has also led the obsessive health and safety culture that has stopped so many folk from having a good time. Good riddance, I say.


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