Former colonials turn the tables England players celebrate the run-out of Ashton Agar. England may be (so far) beating the Australians at cricket, but the higher realms of British public life appear increasingly populated by figures from the former colonies. Lynton Crosby, an Australian, is advising the Conservatives on their political strategy while Ryan Coetzee, a South African, is performing a similar role for the Liberal Democrats. Mark Carney, a Canadian, has just become governor of the Bank of England. The pattern is similar in sport. The England cricket coach is Andy Flower, a Zimbabwean, while the coach for the successful British Lions rugby tour of Australia was Warren Gatland, a New Zealander, who also coaches Wales. Two of the England cricket team, Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott, were born in South Africa. Chris Froome, winner of the Tour de France cycle race, was born in Kenya. I am reluctant to make generalisations about this relatively small number of people. To a degree, some of them fill holes in weak areas of British political and sporting life. Mr Crosby, whose relationship with the tobacco industry is causing controversy, helped to achieve four election victories for John Howard, the former Australian prime minister, and two for Boris Johnson, London mayor. He is important also as an outsider in David Cameron's Eton and Notting Hill-dominated inner circle. Many of them have a reputation for toughness and a whiff of the frontier, though Mr Carney does not fit this stereotype: more smooth than rough, he is renowned for having silkier political skills than the average central banker. Decades after most constitutional links with the colonial power were broken, people from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa fit well into life in the UK and are attracted to it. No doubt a common language and cultural background helps, though when Mr Cameron considered appointing someone from an older former colony - Bill Bratton, the former New York police chief - to run London's police force, that was considered a step too far. The Spectator's James Forsyth puts a eurosceptic gloss on this, arguing that the more complicated the world is, the stronger the bonds of language and common law become. If our political and sporting elite are so keen on recruiting those from the Dominions, why should we allow anyone from Greece to come and seek work in Britain while making it harder and harder for Canadian architects and Indian businessmen to move to these shores? I doubt that geography, and the close economic ties with our European neighbours - not to mention those in football, the most popular sport - can be so easily overcome. Was 1978 best? Notable things happened in 1978. Louise Brown, the first baby conceived by in vitro fertilisation, was born. Annie Hall beat Star Wars as best film at the Oscars, while Grease was the biggest grossing film. An industrial dispute that was to last a year closed down The Times newspaper. It was also when I started at the Financial Times. Little did I think it would be the year when global wellbeing peaked - and has been falling ever since - as claimed in a study led by Ida Kubiszewski of the Australian National University in Canberra. The study, reported in New Scientist, focused on the "genuine progress indicator" (GPI), a modified version of gross domestic product. GPI takes into account environmental and social costs such as pollution, crime and inequality. This is a controversial claim. Even some environmental economists say no single indicator can capture the complexity of the relationship between economics, environment and social development. The average person in developing countries is surely better off now than in the 1970s: half a billion have been lifted out of poverty since the 1990s and life expectancy has risen. It is a reminder, though, that prosperity is not just about money. It carries a price in environmental damage and widening inequality. Ear of the beholder The BBC's Mishal Husain, shortly to join Radio Four's Today programme, is no doubt talented, but I am tired of reading that she is "beautiful and intelligent." Not only is it sexist, but there seems to be no refuge for the ugly - even on the radio.