AMERICAN comedian Lily Tomlin once said: “The trouble with the rat race is, even if you win, you’re still a rat.”

Despite having the benefit of these pearls of wisdom, many of us still choose to chase promotions, higher salaries and greater personal wealth and status.

At the same time, political scientists will tell you that the outcome of national elections in Britain and elsewhere is usually determined by economics. If a country is enjoying strong economic growth and low unemployment, the incumbent party is likely to win, and, if the economy is weak, the opposition is likely to win. At both the personal and national level, money is given high priority.

The dominance of economic performance in determining the outcome of elections has concerned many people for many years. Surely there is much more to what makes society and life good than ever-rising economic output? Obviously, socialists have thought this for many decades. They believe equal distribution of wealth is more important than the overall size of the cake.

But it’s not just socialists any more. At the time of last year’s General Election, David Cameron went off on a bit of a political tangent by arguing we need to introduce other measures by which to judge the nation’s happiness.

This week, the Office for National Statistics published draft indices that could be used to track Britain’s general happiness and wellbeing.

Suggested factors that influence wellbeing include the quality of our relationships with family and friends, whether we are in employment and, if we are, how much job satisfaction we enjoy. Health, including mental health, and the state of our communities are also important factors. These all seem obvious enough.

How you boil them down to one or two meaningful statistics is another matter, and I would question the degree to which government has any real influence over marriage and divorce.

Some particularly cynical types might point out that, given the current economic outlook, it would suit the Prime Minister to take the spotlight off the nation’s economic performance.

His basic thrust, though, is right. There is more to life than money.

As well as the headline figures, a breakdown of which groups are happy and unhappy would also be interesting. Are the old happier than the young, or vice versa? Are northerners happier than their more economically prosperous southern compatriots? Imagine if any future analysis were able to demonstrate a strong correlation, or perhaps inverse correlation, between high economic output and general happiness. The cost of living and the time spent on packed commuter trains in the prosperous South East are often cited as reasons why some people choose to relocate to other parts of Britain.

While some factors are beyond the influence of government, there are plenty of others that government does exert leverage over. For example, the quality of the environment. Architecture, house building standards and the conservation of nature might move up the political agenda if there were clear measures of government performance in these areas.

A new range of well- publicised measures may also have an influence on the values of the population being measured. If we discover that we are unhappy, we could choose to change our priorities. It would be an unexpected thing, though, if backroom statisticians were to succeed where writers, sociologists, priests, psychologists, doctors, lifestyle gurus and others have failed.