Profusion of choice makes us unhappy

Has the David Cameron dog sled recently swung by the little Himalayan city of Thimphu, do you suppose? His latest policy — to make us all, in a rather nebulous way, happier — seems to have been taken word for word from the philosophy of King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, the supreme ruler of Bhutan.

Bhutan is the only country in the world which has an annually measurable index of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which takes precedence over such arid and abstruse criteria as GDP. The country was the subject of a rather wide-eyed and credulous BBC documentary recently, so perhaps David caught the tail end of that before The Bill came on and liked what he saw. In the film, beatifically smiling, monkish lackeys to King Jigme expressed the overwhelming importance of individual happiness and wellbeing and suggested that Bhutan was a world pioneer in taking such concepts extremely seriously. The camera then panned away to picturesque mountains, cheerful yaks and contented peasants.