The absurd New Economics Foundation, darlings of Guardinistas campaigning to stupefy the world save the world, has published what may be the most stupid piece of international research in history. Eschewing traditional economic measures, such as Gross Domestic Product, as bourgeois trinkets, they've ranked countries for their 'Happy Planet Index', taking into account whatever gives them the results they want.

And what results. The United Kingdom (on 43% 'happiness') lags behind dissident-boiling Uzbekistan (50%), monk-bashing Burma (51%), protestor-shooting China (57%), Islamic theocracy Saudi Arabia (60%), and, of course, socialist-wonderland-and-not-at-all-oppressive-all-round-nice-guy Cuba (66%). And it's not just us - just look how bad the US comes out!

[caption id="attachment_551" align="aligncenter" width="375" caption="The worst places to live in the world are in red: sub-Saharan Africa, Iraq... and the USA."][/caption]

But at least we agree on something. We'd rather they lived in Burma, too.

Update: Alex Singleton has singled out the report's conclusion that Burma is a nicer country to live in than Britain. We still think boiling opponents alive is more classic baddie mode than just bashing monks over the heads with truncheons and changing the currency so all denominations were divisible by the dictator's favourite number.