Working lives are for the state to influence. Unemployment makes people unhappy. So does instability.

Nothing keeps people together like the exalted conviction that they alone are to be spared that eternal anguish of hell fire to which everyone else will be condemned.

But the single overwhelming reason why jails are bursting is longer sentences given for more crimes.

Inequality makes everyone unhappy, the poor most of all, and that is well within the remit of the state. More money gives less extra happiness the richer we get, yet we are addicted to earning and spending more every year.

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.

Happiness is a real, objective phenomenon, scientifically verifiable. That means people and whole societies can now be measured over time and compared accurately with one another. Causes and cures for unhappiness can be quantified.

But how odd that in this heathen nation of empty pews, where churches' bare, ruined choirs are converted into luxury loft living, a Labour government - yes, a Labour government - is deliberately creating a huge expansion of faith schools.