The Government's 13-point guide to the things that are supposed to make us feel good (or not, as the case might be), unveiled this week, is all right as a list of the second-division factors which affect our lives. But it does rather miss the main points.

Yes, it's important that air pollution is controlled, that economic growth goes hand-in-hand with wise use of resources, that we all keep on learning throughout our lives, that more houses are built on "brownfield sites" or that all countries do more to reduce greenhouse gases.

But how is it going to improve any of our lives to know the precise percentage of people of working age who are in work, the number of houses which are unfit to live in, the number of vehicles on the roads, whether fish can live in our rivers or the number of thrushes in the average back garden?

These are said to be the "key indicators" of our quality of life. To which it has to be said: "So what?" The indicators are only of significance if they lead to action to improve things. Otherwise it all means nothing except a load of words, an increase in bureaucracy, and a waste of money.

Meanwhile, the real issues which undermine the feel-good factor for most people go unaddressed.

We don't need to know how long we can expect to live. We do want to know that if we live to be old, it will be with dignity, and that if we're taken ill the health service will deal with us promptly and compassionately.

We don't need to know how poor the houses are that many people have to live in. We do want to know that wherever we live, it can be in reasonable comfort and free from harassment from neighbours or gangs of local yobs.

We don't need to know the precise figure of unemployed. We do want to know that something is being done to enable more people to stay in work.

We want to know that the police will protect us against criminals, that the courts will protect us against injustice, that our children will receive the best possible education and our elderly the best possible care.

These are the things people worry about, the things that provide a sense of security. Because when people don't feel secure, they don't feel good - and no amount of tinkering about with statistical trivia is going to make the slightest bit of difference.

When democracy took a back seat

Most of the fuss over the contents of the Queen's Speech has focused on the proposal to do away with hereditary peers, something many of us find it hard to get too excited about.

In fact, the hereditary peers seem to perform a rather useful role, being free of the party-political ties and dogma which dog just about every area of British politics. Admittedly their independence of thought is governed to some degree by self-interest. But on the whole, they aren't the Bad Thing that nice Mr Blair has set them up to be.

No, what worries me more is the proposal in the Queen's Speech to abolish the internal market in the NHS and create Primary Care Groups instead.

Not that I'm actually upset about the ending of the internal market, you understand. As far as I'm concerned it should never have been created. It's proved chaotic and costly, turning the focus of the NHS away from patient care and towards financial juggling.

My concern is with the timing. No doubt I'm hopelessly nave, but aren't proposals raised in the Queen's Speech supposed to be debated and then turned into legislation - if that be the will of Parliament?

So how come that the Primary Care Groups mentioned by HM Queen only this week have already been set up around the country and are scheduled to be up and running by April?

What happened to the debate? What happened to the will of Parliament? What happened to democracy?

I don't take issue with everything the Government is doing. But the way it's going about it, protected by its huge majority, gives a lot to worry about. In fact it highlights the need for an independent second chamber that can offer a more effective challenge to it than the official Opposition.

Which is, of course, the reason why Tony Blair is so keen to reform the House of Lords by creating one more in his own image, likely to stay "on message" and not rock the boat.

Cruel taunts that do such damage

There has been no shortage of people prepared to criticise the parents of Georgia Bussey for putting her through a series of operations to disguise the physical signs of Down's Syndrome. But are they really so wrong to want to protect her - and themselves - from cruel taunts?

Admittedly, however many operations that bright, sweet child has to "normalise" her physical appearance, she will still have to go through life with the intellectual impairment that accompanies Down's Syndrome. But her condition won't be so apparent to the casual observer.

"Why should it matter?" has been the challenge thrown out by some of the critics of the Busseys, often from parents of other Down's Syndrome children. To which the idealistic answer is that it shouldn't matter, that it's not an individual's appearance that counts but what's in their soul.

But we live in the real, harsh world alongside people who are carelessly insensitive and even deliberately cruel, people whose own souls are filled with wickedness.

After the Children in Need broadcast last week, I was haunted by the stories of two children. One was a little boy whose cheek had to be sewn back on after it was torn off by a dog, and remained badly scarred. The other was a little girl who has lost her hair through treatment for cancer.

Both had been cruelly taunted. The little boy had been so traumatised by the experience that he was barely able to repeat some of the so-called jokes made at his expense.

I was filled with pity for those children, and with rage at the insensitive, inadequate oafs who are too dim to accept people who look different and try to make themselves feel important by persecuting them.

So I for one can't condemn Georgia Bussey's parents for doing what they believe to be right to try to protect her from them.

Quick action that saved a toddler's life

Mrs Marie Lord is a heroine. She took one look at the child in the arms of the young woman standing next to her at the bus stop, realised he had meningitis, and summoned an ambulance.

As a result the toddler's life was spared. He and his mother will be eternally grateful to Mrs Lord for her sharp observation and quick thinking.

However, Mrs Lord's own baby daughter, as she grows up, might find it hard to be grateful to her mother for the name she bestowed on her.

What on earth prompts a person to call an infant "Diggory"?

Return of the prodigal fun...

It's good to hear that local lad Harry Gration is returning to front Look North for the BBC from Leeds. His double act with Judith Stamper some years ago, before he left TV to work for the Rugby League, was one of the best partnerships on the box.

I last saw Harry on screen a couple of years ago when I was on holiday on the Isle of Wight and he was appearing on Southern Television. He looked to be enjoying himself reasonably enough, but even so he had that buttoned-up sadness of a Yorkshireman in exile. We fellow Tykes can spot these things.

From the New Year, though, he'll no longer be looking North. He'll be back here among us. Welcome home, Harry.

Enjoy Mike Priestley's Yorkshire Walks

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.