Bernard Ingham: Cheer up, it may never happen... unless you're Lord Young

If so, how would you answer the Office of National Statistics (ONS) when it comes to discharge the Prime Minister's remit to concoct a measure of the nation's happiness – a "feel good" factor to complement economic data?

Like a bear with a sore back? Or with masterly detachment, carefully analysing how relatively contented you are with the world and Britain's position in it?

If you are anything like me, you would probably object to being importuned by yet another pollster and cantankerously tell him you are temporarily out of opinions. On mature reflection, that might not be wise. It might "skew" the index in favour of those patient and helpful citizens who have a more roseate view of the world than you.

All this goes to show what a mess Cameron is potentially getting himself into with yet another indicator. And why do we need it?

Ye Gods, we British and our attitudes have never been more analysed in their history. In any case, what matters to Cameron (and Nick Clegg) is not whether the public are in raptures of delight over their handling of our affairs but how much better (or worse) they stand in public esteem than the Opposition.

A proliferation of public opinion polls provides this even more regularly than some people change their socks – and pretty accurately, too, judging from the last election.

Which brings me back to Lord Young and his sweeping statements. Yes, many people have done well – so far – out of the recession because of low interest rates. The reckoning is still to come, if only in inflation. Many others, such as me, have not. Our investment income has been slashed.

And just take all those people who have had their private pensions wrecked by Gordon Brown. Burning with righteous anger, they are not likely to provide the ONS with a positive reading.

In cold statistical terms, Lord Young has a point about the limited scale of the cuts. But what may be limited to a well-heeled Government adviser is a matter of acute concern to people who might become part of the statistics by losing their job. Living under a real or even imagined threat is not conducive to a sense of well being.

In other words, it depends on when you measure our contentment. Perhaps even the seasons play a part.

Politically, Cameron is probably right to start measuring our happiness now as we wait for the cuts to bite. What you need in 2015 – always assuming the Coalition manages a five-year term – is an index which shows how much better we regard our condition then than now in the austerity of the 2010-11 winter.

It is, of course, ironic that Lord Young has been felled by his insensitive use of statistics when, as I balefully recall, he was for tinkering with the measurement of unemployment as one of Margaret Thatcher's Ministers.

He may, as she said, have brought solutions rather than problems to her but some of them were not exactly easy for me to handle. It is clear his political touch has not improved over the past 25 years.

He may nonetheless go down in history as a hero if his work over recent months for No 10 manages to drive some of the feeble political correctness out of our lives. That alone would raise my spirits.

But they would be immediately dashed when I read that this blessed coalition is proposing to force us all to ring remote call centres to get a doctor's appointment, doing away with surgery receptionists.

It is, of course, difficult enough to raise these receptionists as things stand. We have given up by telephone and go to beard them in their den. But the thought of losing that access to some unintelligible jabberer in a call centre, perhaps in Bangalore, is the end, even if when I last saw a receptionist I could not get a date with the doctor before December 20.

If things go on like this, I shall need hospitalisation for blood pressure, angst and general turmoil. Please do not call it stress. It's festering discontent. For heaven's sake, Cameron, curb your enthusiasm for making us happy. It's a very hit and miss process.