It really does pay to bank on happiness

ACCORDING to some utterly fatuous research a few years ago, being rich didn’t make you happy. After you earn £55,000 a year, any further income makes no difference to your mental state, it said.

What utter rubbish: now new research proves that actually it cheers you up no end to have a topheavy bank account.

Well of course it does. They don’t call it retail therapy for nothing. You know what they say: anyone who thinks that money can’t buy you happiness doesn’t know where to shop.

On a related note, earlier this week a Radio 4 presenter said, without being challenged, that there is a clear case for a wealth tax as opposed to income tax.

Oh no there isn’t: it would be a disincentive to entrepreneurs, who are exactly the sort of people this country needs at the moment. Clearly the BBC Director-General, Tim Davie, who has vowed to clear up this sort of Left-leaning nonsense, still has a way to go.

ELIZABETH Hurley is at it again: another half-clad picture in which a cardie covers what’s left of her modesty.

Liz, 55, is in great nick, no question about it, and she has bikinis to flog. But there’s a fine line between drumming up publicity and desperation. She should step back.