Could a government dare to set out with happiness as its goal? Now that there are accepted scientific proofs, it would be easy to audit the progress of national happiness annually, just as we monitor money and GDP.

Crime is only the worst example, but it is a paradigm for other Labour policy disasters. No one tells the voters that crime is falling: let them stay scared senseless.

It is now possible to quantify people's levels of happiness pretty accurately by asking them, by observation, and by measuring electrical activity in the brain, in degrees from terrible pain to sublime joy.

But instead of standing up for reason, our government is handing education over to the world of faith.

So what really works? Treatments in jail do some good, but it's mostly too late: finding a family and a job or just growing older make most prisoners eventually give up crime.

People want the right to die at a time of their own choosing. Too many families have watched helplessly as a relative dies slowly, longing for death.

Islam, Christianity and Judaism all define themselves through disgust of women's bodies.