The Greatest Gift

Happiness, sang Ken Dodd, happiness, was the greatest gift that he possessed. Gift in this case meaning gifted by god, by nature, by providence or, just possibly gifted by himself. So precious is this gift that the pursuit of it is enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence, alongside life and liberty. But while life and liberty are granted as ‘unalienable rights’ even the Founding Fathers recognised that that happiness means different things to different people and thus it was up to each as individuals to pursue their own with no guarantee of success.

So it is somewhat presumptuous of Jo Swinson, the new and excitable leader of the Illiberal anti-Democratic Party, to propose the appointment of a Minister for Happiness. For a start, what can she mean by happiness and how would we measure when one has achieved it? Will we have to regularly report our state of elation to government auditors for assessment? After all, if you are going to create a ministry how will it know when it has achieved its stated aims and will it have to define an acceptable type of happiness; will happiness be regulated, ordered, monitored and corrected, or will we be granted the liberty to define our own?

But just suppose happiness – and bear with me on this as I riff – is, you know, a by-product of many other things, such as being comfortably well-off, having a sound roof above your head, being fed and watered and decently clothed. Being free of worldly concerns has to contribute to the sum total of contentment but humans have a habit of finding misery even amidst great wealth and comfort. So, I’m guessing the new ministry would have to also consider removing the impediments to joy which thwarted ambition, failed relationships and loss bring.

Perhaps we could also have ministers whose purpose is to ensure good educational outcomes, healthcare, stress-free and efficient transport, agricultural productivity, environmental security and, say, equality and human rights? If only these had been considered by earlier administrations then we wouldn’t need Jo’s blue-sky, outside the box, radical, direct-to-the-heart-of-the-matter prognostications. Better still, to make us feel better than ever, why not a minister for self-esteem? See, these are classics of student-level, socialist groupthink; ‘if only everybody could be more like me… let’s legislate!’.

It turns out, on further investigation that we already have (who’d have thought it?) ministries to deal with all the above and more. And we have more advisors on health, wealth and happiness than we have ever had. The internet is awash with people making themselves very happy indeed – and smug – by telling everybody else how to achieve a nirvana just like theirs. And it is a crock because what makes you wriggle in delirious delight may well make me squirm in revulsion. We no more need a minister for happiness than we need one for breathing.

But, you know what is good for happiness, for self-esteem, for all-round well-being? It is a sense of being in control of your own destiny. Give people the tools and the wherewithal and they will work out the rest for themselves. Educate them, provide meaningful, well-paid work and a sense of community and responsibility and they will become better people. Free them from the shackles of groupthink and suddenly the whole group is healthier. 

Real freedom - not those 'freedoms'.

As a nation the freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness will not come from being shackled to a moribund rules-obsessed monolith which believes it can legislate people better. It will not come from a one-size-fits-all approach to every part of society. It is in the Declaration of Independence, Jo! Freedom from those Newspeak 'freedoms' of the EU. Happiness comes from pulling up your socks, getting up off the bench and walking out through that open cell door. Brexit has opened the door for us – let’s get the hell out before people like Swinson slam it shut again.

Forgive them

The scenes this weekend, of zombie EU drones stumbling around the capital, impromptu protests against ‘fascism’, ‘dictatorship’ and a ‘coup’ that the government has somehow mounted against itself, are starting to look desperate. Demands that we ignore the referendum and – ideally, it seems – keep on voting until Remain wins, abound and formerly respected public figures once more make utter fools of themselves. Having finally got a Prime Minister who appears to mean what he says, is the truth beginning to dawn?

The screeching is becoming frantic, the demonstrations more desperate. Paul mason, communist agitator for a bygone age of heavy industry and wildcat strikes, has been all over the news parading his own breakdown for all to see. Remainer politicians, still believing they can play both sides, are laughably claiming they stand for democracy while simultaneously trying to overthrow it. And of course, the clownishly clad, EU-flag toting, ageing hippies are out there, speaking for the young, whose ‘futures have been betrayed’.

What a hoot. They are reliving the Greenham Common peace camps, the Ban-the-Bomb marches of the sixties and their own experimentation with the discredited mind-altering ideologies of Marx and Mao. Democracy is one thing, direct action another and the ignoring of a democratic mandate is an abuse of both. The vote is won, but the war goes on and the lies, the misleading rhetoric and the abuse of gullible people is largely the work of the losing side. We are now in the fourth year of this war and the end feels like it really is coming this time.

But how will they cope after the armistice, if armistice there is? After the war is over, will these people quietly go back to the jobs they held before? And what of the overly vocal public figures who, mask-slipped, have berated the public for their gullibility, their naivety, their doltish stupidity? How will they fare post-Brexit and will they double down on their own public humiliation by continuing to lobby for a lost cause? Well, of course they will; there is nothing else left for them and obscurity would be unbearable.

The only thing worse than being talked about, said Wilde, is not being talked about. For those who have been made to look fools – Grayling, Miller, Campbell, Clarke (the list goes on and on and on) the lesser punishment might just be to look for scraps of funding from EU sources to continue the fight from their little intellectual archipelago of disconnected islands. As far as the rest of us are concerned, a period of silence from these hollow vessels would be welcome.

  

Remainers make their reasonable demands...

So, let them have their last few weeks of public displays of grief. Let them imagine their dwindling numbers are fighting a cause which has not – as it has, undoubtedly – already been lost. Let them rend their garments, shriek until they are hoarse, dance like loons draped in the flags of our adversary. Let them call us fascists and Nazis, despots and dictators one last time. And then, let us forgive them and forget them, for they know not what they do.