please empty your brain below
High levels of anxiety West London, maybe noise level stress from Heathrow aircraft.
London as a wholes high anxiety causes possibly overcrowded trains and tubes, traffic congestion, high cost of living and generally too many people.

John | 24.10.13 - 7:29 a.m. | #

Ask someone in isolation about their opinion of their personal circumstances, and there's a tendency for them to give a pessimistic, slightly negative response. After all it's not very British to boast.

Show them an example of someone who's worse off than they are, then ask them again and they are likely to reconsider and be more positive. Surveys, bah!

Waterhouse | 24.10.13 - 7:33 a.m. | #

You know what makes me really unhappy is when the government wastes money on these ridiculous surveys.

Karen | 24.10.13 - 7:52 a.m. | #

Are these differences statistically significant? I want some error bars. Do they quote standard deviations? Plus/minus 1 or 0.1 or 0.01?

Andrew | 24.10.13 - 8:05 a.m. | #

I expect the statisticians at ONS realise that the data is being used to support ludicrous assertions, but their press office either doesn't know or doesn't care. Just remember the first rule of journalism: simplify then exaggerate...

Baldassaro | 24.10.13 - 8:41 a.m. | #

DG - great article.

There is some merit in a survey like this, in that we can actually see that most of the UK is broadly the same. Tracking movements year on year (and comparing to 5 years/10 years/20 years ago) may give some insight.

Messiah | 24.10.13 - 9:15 a.m. | #

Agree with Karen. Stupid ridiculous surveys. Bit like the census, they have it then people start doing comparisons on all sorts old rubbish that turns out to be very divisive whereby if we didn't know we wouldn't care and be much happier.

Agent Z | 24.10.13 - 9:20 a.m. | #

I wonder what they mean by happiness? Pleasure? - Not sure that fits. Perhaps there is a new utilitarianism in Government.

Bentham would be so proud!

Richard | Homepage | 24.10.13 - 9:22 a.m. | #

.. and DG, you said: And Tower Hamlets is (happy) and Newham is, which doesn't quite make sense does it?

Why? What are you insinuating about Tower Hamlets and Newham?

Agent Z | 24.10.13 - 9:36 a.m. | #

While this is interesting I really find it hard to read the map with this colour scheme! It'd make a lot more sense to use one colour shade with lighter and darker colours, or just lighter and darker colours in general. but purple/pink/yellow/red doesn't seem very logical...

sweek | 24.10.13 - 10:12 a.m. | #

@Andrew

Reading the full release, yes, they do quote standard deviations - generally about 2 for the "happiness" index. The "max" and "min" figures (error bars) would be consisent with all the outer London boroughs scoring 7.2 and all the inner London ones scoring 7.1, with one outlier, Ken & Chel (which is 7.5 +/- 0.2) - possibly coincidentally this was the largest sample.
Even that one outlier is not statistically significant - you would expect 5% of the sample to be outside the 95% confidence level (that's what 95% confidence level means) so in a sample of 16 boroughs it is more likely that not that one of them will be that far off the mean.

timbo | 24.10.13 - 10:47 a.m. | #

@sweek - since the statistics are almost meaningless anyway - the differences are too small to be statisticaly significant - it doesn't really matter what colours are used.

timbo | 24.10.13 - 10:49 a.m. | #

Surely all right minded British people, when asked to rate ANYTHING on a scale of one to ten, says 7? 8,9 or 10 would be boastful; 5 and 6 implies requiring help; and 1 to 5 would just be rude. If you asked an average bride, on her wedding day, how happy she was, it'd still take an almighty effort for her to say 10. And if she did, I'd sort of judge her for it ("Really? You couldn't be happier in any way? Even if you were given a winning lottery ticket by George Clooney right now?")

Scott | Homepage | 24.10.13 - 11:24 a.m. | #

I am struggling to understand the statistics.

The data - http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-327124 - suggests that the average "life satisfaction" (on a scale of 0 to 10) is 7.45, with a standard deviation of 1.83. But the 95% confidence upper and lower limits for the mean are 7.44 and 7.46, with a "coefficient of variation" of 0.08. If one standard deviation is nearly 2, how can the 95% confidence limit be so close to 7.45?

It seems to me that the data is entirely consistent with "about 7" across the board, with is over-interpretation of the very minor differences between regions and between last year and this year.

"These statistics are experimental in nature and published at an early stage to gain feedback from users" - http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/wellbeing/measuring-national-well-being/personal-well-being-across-the-uk--2012-13/sb---personal-well-being-across-the-uk--2012-13.html#tab-background-notes

Andrew | 24.10.13 - 11:57 a.m. | #

"see how unhappy neighbouring Hammersmith and Fulham is, which'll be Shepherd's Bush dragging the area down" ...so my living in a over-crowded bedsit in Shepherd's Bush makes the residents of 'well-to-do' Hammersmith and Fulham feel unhappy? Then again...i doubt they really care, they probably more likely to be unhappy because they not living in the (Royal Borough of)Kensington & Chelsea. Just a thought...an the grass is always greener etc.

E | 24.10.13 - 12:16 p.m. | #

A couple of you are complaining about the comments I've made about specific boroughs underneath the first map. I draw your attention to the phrase "In fact all the conclusions I've drawn above are drivel" at the end of the paragraph.

diamond geezer | 24.10.13 - 1:22 p.m. | #

The discovery that there is a 'head of personal well-being' at the Office for National Statistics has plunged me into off-the-scale anxiety.

Stilted Banter | 24.10.13 - 1:40 p.m. | #

Hmmm..., I'm reminded of 'The Prisoner".

Surreyguy | 24.10.13 - 4:44 p.m. | #

Good post DG... right up until your penultimate para, which is wrong in saying that this is 'sad'. All the people saying this 'survey' is a waste of time are wrong too.

We need more of this kind of thing not less. The ONS might not have got the methodology quite right yet, but we need to look at alternative ways of measuring the 'success' of the country than %growth in GDP. Measuring happiness is a way of showing that there are more important things in life than just the nominal growth rate. Looking at GDP per person or figures for 'standard of living' are a start. But why not try to measure happiness too, since isn't that what really matters?

Sure, it's not easy to count, and people's willingness to give top scores might go up or go down because of things that aren't really to do with happiness. But just because it turns out that London's figure today isn't so very different to Scotland's isn't a reason not to try. Maybe there will be more significant variations in 5 years time? What might the differences be if Scotland goes independent? Will the much-trumpeted upturn in the economy be reflected in an upturn in how we actually feel about our lives?

I agree though about the poor interpretation and exaggeration in some of the reporting. Saying London has 'very little life satisfaction' when the score is 7.3 instead of 7.4 is ludicrous!

Trying to measure happiness is a good idea! | 25.10.13 - 12:39 a.m. | #

I see you mention the Orkneys. While the rest of us know what you mean, the Orcadians themselves insist that their homeland is either Orkney or the Orkney Islands. You've probably reduced their happiness index from 8.1 to 7.9.

Peter CS | 25.10.13 - 5:01 p.m. | #

I think Scott's comment has hit the nail on the head.

Great Aunt Annie | 25.10.13 - 8:58 p.m. | #











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