Scotland, it seems, is a bit happier than it was a couple of years ago. The Carnegie’s Life in the UK index 2025 tells us that more of us can heat our own homes adequately and can afford a week’s holiday. We also believe we’re happy with our education and our ability to do things. Thus, our sense of wellbeing, while not in the Happy as Larry category or among the cat’s whiskers, remains reassuringly above ‘stressed oot ma nut’.

This in itself is a cause for mild celebration. If an index measuring Scots’ sense of wellbeing had climbed into the 90s, I’d be profoundly troubled. We’re simply not wired to be jouking around the neighbourhood smiling all the time and telling everyone how optimistic we feel about life. If I felt burdened to be sunnily disposed all the time my personal wellbeing index would plummet. I’d require counselling. Just let Scots be Scots. One of the blessings of living in a chilly and wet climate where people let you get on with your business with little more than a grunt and a nod is that we get a lot done. I’m not sure if Alexander Graham Bell, John Logie Baird and James Watt would have devoted their lives to inventing the modern world if they’d lived in California. Being a bit sodden and circumspect meant they could get on with thinking and pondering without any distractions. The tool-kit required for such invention, I think, requires a degree of built-in solemnity.

Not that I’d advise taking seriously anything in the Carnegie Index of Wellbeing 2025. This outfit fashioned questions about how we feel about ourselves and delivered the following acute analysis: people living in social housing with a low economic wellbeing score are less happy than........

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