We're still measuring David Cameron's Domestic Happiness Index, and it isn't looking good at all

General concern about 'wellbeing' – boredom, anxiety, stress – comes top – but specific fear about health actually ranks below the effects on work, household finances and schooling, writes Sean O'Grady

David Cameron received lifelong protection from specialist police officers (Getty Images)

It seemed a good idea at the time. Almost a decade ago, a freshly minted Tory prime minister announced that he wanted to introduce an index of Gross Domestic Happiness. As David Cameron put it at the time, “We will start measuring our progress as a country not just by how our economy is doing, but by how our lives are improving; not just by our standard of living, but by our quality of life”.

Or, to put it another way, money isn’t everything and, by the way, we modern Conservatives understand that, and that there is such a thing as society, too.

Cameron wanted “to let the sunshine in”. A year before, the British economy had shrunk by about 5 per cent during the global financial crisis. Then, that collapse was a post-war record and enough to end 13 years of Labour rule; now those days seem like a halcyon era of optimism and stability.