Britain's well-being unbuttoned.

Anne Frank wrote that “we all live with the objective of being happy,” and to gauge how we are getting on, this week the Office for National Statistics revealed the results of our first national wellbeing survey. Launched towards the end of 2010, this was David Cameron’s happiness index, a drive to discern our success more from the size of our smiles than our surplus shekels. To recap, then, as now, we had none.

The Prime Minister said; “It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money and it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB – general wellbeing.” The ONS budget for harnessing the happy stats is £2 million a year, and it aspires towards a better appreciation of what actually makes us happy, in order to make that illusive reality easier to reach for. “Improving our society's sense of wellbeing is, I believe, the central political challenge of our times,” Mr Cameron concluded.

Greeted by Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Michael Dughner as “a statement of the bleeding-obvious”, the survey found our most satisfied souls to be teenagers and the elderly, residents of Orkney and Shetland and married home-owners in steady employment. Greater minds than mine will no doubt deal with the more delicate deductions, but it appears that avoiding the rat race is as much a worthy way to wellbeing as winning it. By and large, those questioned were happier in work than unemployed, and yet the more satisfied sections of society were revealed as those least likely to have a full-time job. Home-owners were generally more content than their counterparts in rented accommodation, and yet teenagers were amongst the happiest overall, but the least likely to have a mortgage. Interestingly, black people taking part in the survey considered themselves less content than those questioned from Indian origin.

Although looking beyond the pursuit of profit is no doubt a noble cause, how exactly these findings filter into government policy may be as difficult to discern as the key to contentment itself. HHkkkHowever, Mr Cameron can take comfort from the fact that he is not alone in striving to broaden the basis for defining success. Nicolas Sarkozy commissioned a similar report, in 2009, seeking to crack “the cult of the market”, and feature national wellbeing in GDP figures. And we all know what happened to him.

In all, the Office for National Statistics present a predictably mixed picture, pointing to conclusions many might be forgiven for thinking self-evident. Perhaps it’s your attitude to your lot, not whether you have a lot, or not, that sets the scale of your smile.

Oops, need troops!

From the country that brought you the Millennium Dome, please welcome, London 2012. A fortnight away from an event planned over seven years, we find a security personnel shortfall of about 3000 staff. The MoD, already providing 13,500 helping hands, now need up to 17,000, many of whom will be servicemen and women returning home from Afghanistan to find their holiday plans postponed.

G4S, the company with the lucrative security contract for the Games, have others too. The world’s largest private security firm also manage immigration detention centres, conduct deportations, empty cash machines, read meters, and have been bidding to take over large tranches of police operations.

Although the current kerfuffle is on Coalition time, the company won the contract on Labour’s watch. In response, Shadow Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell said that G4S should really have been monitored “day by day”, to be certain they were as good as their word. Why, is the office staffed entirely by four-year-olds? I monitor my son’s hot chocolate making activities, but if he was a veteran of several foreign conflicts I would hope that only minimal supervision would be necessary.

In fairness to G4S, the initial government estimate of 10,000 security staff needed for the Games, was revised up last year to around 23,500. However, every time the goal posts moved, the match fee increased. The Telegraph report leaked Home Office documents revealing the fee for G4S staff management went from £7.3 million to £60 million. With all that cash in the till, why not sub-contract? Industry insiders say the staffing shortfall could have been easily met by London agencies alone. Instead, it seems that students, some of questionable suitability, were being shipped in on £8.50 per hour as a supplement, and without sufficient success. As incompetency is more contagious than the common cold, it should also be no surprise to learn that no penalty clause was included for failure to deliver on the £284 million contract.

One might expect future G4S bids to be subject to increased scrutiny on the back of this understaffing oversight, but such is not always the way in Westminster. If the Olympics prove an unparalleled paragon of sporting success, and a commercial combustion engine to aid our ailing economy, then the G4S fiasco will be a forgotten footnote. But that is an “if” as big as the fee they will no doubt fail to forfeit.  

Welcome to Britain, bring brollies.

There was a hill rising up above the Cornish town I was born in. The locals said if you couldn’t see the top of it, that meant it was raining, and if you could, it soon would be. I dare say its whereabouts have been well and truly shrouded for weeks now, as the West Country is awash with, in some places, a month’s rainfall in 24 hours, little respite after the wettest June since 1860.

At the time of writing, 149 flood alerts have been put in place, 13 flood warnings, three of them severe, and the Olympic torch relay has been halted. Presumably they feared it might go out, and it’s harder to light than a wet fag in a thunderstorm.

One wonders if the torch now regrets selecting the UK as its destination of choice for a little summer saunter. It started out being lit by the sun, in Athens, surrounded by dozens of statuesque looking types in togas. It will complete its sodden sojourn in Stratford, surrounded by pale people in anoraks.

As if the imminent risk of drowning was not enough to trouble the travelling Olympians on their way to London 2012, it now seems our roads system requires a little TLC; truck loads of cash. Londoners have only just reacquainted themselves with the myriad joys of the Hammersmith flyover, after its £10 million MOT, and now the M4 has had to be closed, because it’s cracked. The offending fissure was found in the Boston Manor viaduct, meaning the main route into London from Heathrow is out of action between Junctions 1 and 2. The British Olympic Committee have had one successful bid already, maybe the next should be for spare bridges on ebay. Curing the cracks will apparently take five days, less if they just cover them with woodchip wallpaper.

After a semi-sodden Silverstone, a demi-drenched Diamond Jubilee and the usual wash outs at Wimbledon, it is perplexing that we even plan any non-precipitation proof parties at all. I would favour the erection of a giant awning, from Hastings to Holyhead, under which we retreat, as one, from the first shower of spring to the final soaking in September. As the government are found of telling us, Britain is open for business, but best bring a brolly, and maybe a bridge.

Diamond cut: Bob-a-Job no more.

It turns out that diamonds are not forever. In the wake of the rate-rigging revelations Barclays Chairman Marcus Agius fell nobly upon his sword. Two days later, Chief Executive Bob Diamond has toppled too, but needed no small nudging. Already due to be lightly grilled by the Treasury Committee on Wednesday, the heat on Mr Diamond was increasing daily, to an extent that he felt it was “damaging the franchise”.

Chancellor George Osborne said it was the right decision, hinting at a sea-change to a “culture of responsibility in British banking”. Central to that should be the impending parliamentary review into banking practices, announced yesterday by the Prime Minister.

With labour leaning more towards a full public inquiry however, Ed Miliband feels that Britain won’t buy “politicians investigating bankers”. After assorted scandals and self-service on both sides, some may indeed struggle to assess which have cost us more and helped us less. By contrast, David Cameron concludes that a parliamentary inquiry is “the right approach”, as it should be swifter to establish. The theory goes that resulting recommendations, if accepted, could seamlessly slip into the Financial Services Bill. Wonder who’ll end up paying that one.

 Political posturing aside, the focus should be product not process. Surely the success of this inquiry swings on not needing another one next time. I concur in part with the TUC’s Brendan Barber, that it’s not “the number of heads that roll, but whether it leads to the root and branch reforms…”

 For manipulating the inter-bank lending rate, Barclays were fined £290 million and the boss lost his bonus. It’s a sizeable slap to the Rolex adorned wrist, but is it a sufficient deterrent for the Masters of the Universe? Mr Diamond, a former boss of Barclays’ investment arm, said; “I am sorry that some people acted in a manner not consistent with our culture and values.” Some may suspect the exact opposite is true, that it’s the casino culture created in some sectors that encourages actions consistent with a complete lack of values.

Diamond has been cut, but whether he was just grazed, or polished up and knighted is more symbolic than seismic. If you divorce retail banking from its riskier relation, cross-contamination could conceivably be controlled. Otherwise, without robust regulation, the great and the good of Westminster and the City will have their backs mutually scratched and patted, but rarely put up, to protect from rocking the boat. It’s time to set a new course.