My Lords temporal, today is the day to rise up against the regiment of Lords spiritual and proclaim the values of enlightenment, compassion and common sense.

Happiness is a real, objective phenomenon, scientifically verifiable. That means people and whole societies can now be measured over time and compared accurately with one another. Causes and cures for unhappiness can be quantified.

Most people come to fear not death itself, but the many terrible ways of dying.

This is indeed a clash of civilisations, not between Islam and Christendom but between reason and superstition.

So what really works? Treatments in jail do some good, but it's mostly too late: finding a family and a job or just growing older make most prisoners eventually give up crime.

People want the right to die at a time of their own choosing. Too many families have watched helplessly as a relative dies slowly, longing for death.

Is anyone serious about the politics of happiness? David Cameron dipped a toe in the water, using the word lightly, but denying the hard policies it implies. Labour shies away from it, but should take up the challenge.

Thresholds of pain, indignity and incapacity are entirely personal.

Working lives are for the state to influence. Unemployment makes people unhappy. So does instability.

Openness about death has led to greater care about all aspects of dying.

The best care on earth cannot prevent us all dying in the end.

The strongest predictor of unhappiness is anyone who has had a mental illness in the last 10 years. It is an even stronger predictor of unhappiness than poverty - which also ranks highly.

In the polls, over 80% support the right to die and have done for the last 25 years. Even 80% of practising Catholics and Protestants support it, plus 76% of Church Times readers.

But instead of standing up for reason, our government is handing education over to the world of faith.

Crime is only the worst example, but it is a paradigm for other Labour policy disasters. No one tells the voters that crime is falling: let them stay scared senseless.

My Lords temporal, today is the day to rise up against the regiment of Lords spiritual and proclaim the values of enlightenment, compassion and common sense.

One in six people suffer depression or a chronic anxiety disorder. These are not the worried well but those in severe mental pain with conditions crippling enough to prevent them living normal lives.

How do you make any sense of history, art or literature without knowing the stories and iconography of your own culture and all the world's main religions?

There is all the difference in the world between teaching children about religion and handing them over to be taught by the religious.

But how odd that in this heathen nation of empty pews, where churches' bare, ruined choirs are converted into luxury loft living, a Labour government - yes, a Labour government - is deliberately creating a huge expansion of faith schools.

Could a government dare to set out with happiness as its goal? Now that there are accepted scientific proofs, it would be easy to audit the progress of national happiness annually, just as we monitor money and GDP.

It is now possible to quantify people's levels of happiness pretty accurately by asking them, by observation, and by measuring electrical activity in the brain, in degrees from terrible pain to sublime joy.

Inequality makes everyone unhappy, the poor most of all, and that is well within the remit of the state. More money gives less extra happiness the richer we get, yet we are addicted to earning and spending more every year.

My mother begged doctors to end her life. She was beyond the physical ability to swallow enough of the weak morphine pills she had around her. When she knew she was dying I promised to make sure she could go at a time of her choosing, but it was impossible. I couldn't help.

But the single overwhelming reason why jails are bursting is longer sentences given for more crimes.

The Humanist view of life is progressive and optimistic in awe of human potential living without fear of judgement and death finding enough purpose and meaning in life love and leaving a good legacy.

Historical methodology, as I see it, is a product of common sense applied to circumstances.

Common sense should tell us that there is no reason for civilians to have access to easily concealable handguns with the capability to shoot through body armor.

I believe that Canadians have the common sense to see that a better future cannot be built on fragmentation.

If a man has common sense, he has all the sense there is.

Common sense tells us that we should focus our resources to benefit children, teachers and taxpayers by keeping dollars in the classroom.

Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

A great deal has been said about my commitment not to raise taxes. It's a core value - it's common sense - it's important to keeping and growing jobs - and it's mainstream!

A balanced program for tax reform based upon the common sense idea of lowering taxes out of surplus revenues.

My success was not based so much on any great intelligence but on great common sense.

As liberty and intelligence have increased the people have more and more revolted against the theological dogmas that contradict common sense and wound the tenderest sensibilities of the soul.

Common sense tells us that this explosion of media sources should eliminate any concern over a lack of diversity of views in the marketplace and competition.

Common sense is calculation applied to life.

Tonight was a great opportunity to take on the political status quo that has given us trillion dollar deficits and put millions out of work. Our objective was to inject some common sense into the conversation among Republicans at a time when business-as-usual simply won't work.

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

Have common sense and stick to the point.

Common sense as well as common values all lead us. Our future depends upon it and our present is going to be vastly better when we get back to these basics.

I have seen that the American Dream is a reality - and I would love to feel the British Dream is also a reality. To enable that, we have to bring back some common sense and encourage family values, a proper sense of justice and make people believe they have a decent chance to build a business or career for themselves. I see this moment as a fantastic opportunity to restore this, because I believe Britain Has Talent.

People just want to hear some common sense... and I bring to bear the experience in local government and state government and national government - I was the first woman in history on the Senate Finance Committee - not to mention the diplomatic international experience.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

If people use common sense and their own guiding moral compass, I think they'll generally stay out of trouble.

I am outraged that a House member has tried through this provision to breach the traditional confidentiality of individual Americans' tax returns. There is no reason for this measure, and this last-minute act violates all principles of judgment and common sense.

I think anybody would have to be with out common sense to think there weren't aliens. There are billions of planets, and I am convinced Earth is not the only one that's inhabited. It would be quite an ego trip to think that. I think about it all the time.