The wellbeing of society should be the ultimate objective of policy, including macroeconomic. I do not feel, however, that wellbeing analysis as currently conducted is the way forward. People differ in what makes them happy. Drivers are happier with better roads while others might be happier with better public transport. The role of democratic politics is to confront and hash out these convergent views and interests. Aggreagting very heterogeneous indicators over which interest differ into decreasingly transparent indexes (like GNH) isn't the way forward. I do believe that we have learned some policy relevant facts from the happiness literature, like the importance of unemployment and mental health and I would be happy to see these insights affect policy. But ultimately, we should be looking at a variety of indicators and will and should continue to disagree on what makes for a good society.

While there are conditions under which an industrial strategy is useful in theory, it is rare for industrial strategy to be useful in practice, particularly in high income economies. It is nearly impossible for the government to do this without picking winners and losers. In an advanced and dynamic economy like the UK, the government has no particular advantage in forecasting the industries of the future. This should be left to the free market and to private enterprise. The government should rather focus on providing the physical and regulartory infrastructure that entrepreneurs require.