The Greatest Gift

Another of Daveybloke's focus groups on the business of increased cuddliness has come up with yet more sparkling insight; namely that "naturally acquisitive people often tend to be dissatisfied and unhappy". Britain has contracted "affluenza" and is in "social recession", with a million people taking drugs of which the Government disapproves and twice as many taking drugs which make a healthy profit for pharmaceutical companies. This is because British society has a "preoccupation with materialism" which has led to rampant "status anxiety" which is the "darker side of wealth". The group is headed by Zac Goldsmith, who doubtless knows all about what a burden it is to be rich; and by John Selwyn Gummer, whose horror at the prospect of seeing the Church of England become an equal opportunities employer led him to apostatise and take up pope-worship instead. Naturally, the group has called for an end to "hedonistic treadmill where individuals can never be satisfied", urging that people instead pursue a "slower" lifestyle involving "a cut in salary and flexible working" so that their gross materialistic urges may be conquered in the name of cutting carbon emissions. The group's report will "form the basis of the Tories' environment policy", which is probably for the best given what it has going for it as social policy. It is expected to "stop short of endorsing nuclear power as the answer to cutting carbon emissions, while recommending radical proposals for getting people to fly less and use more environmentally friendly forms of transport." The report will also note that "Treating [the market] as a god and doing its bidding does not make men and women happy", an observation with which I am sure many of us will agree, except for those who don't.