The BBC story starts off very optimistic:

Nine out of ten people are happy – and seven in ten optimistic about the future – a government survey suggests…

The report says “in general Britain is a happy nation” with 70% expecting more positive than negative experiences.

But then we see this a little lower down:

The fieldwork was completed before the intensification of the banking crisis in September and October 2008.

So, during/soon after our golden Olympics, people were happy. While we knew that there was economic uncertainty, since then it has got more than slightly worse. Whilst we may have been in general happy and expecting more good than bad things to happen to us then, were this survey to be carried out now rather the opposite is more likely to be found.

Why it has taken more than two months for this survey to be published? Since it has been published when the economy is going right down the tube, one can’t help but consider that the publishing of this survey was done just to get a few headlines proclaiming that “Britain is happy despite credit crunch“. The truth is that Britain was happy – in August.