The chip, which measures 15mm (½in) by 17mm, could be embedded in teddy bears, sportswear or children's watches. If a child disappeared, parents would be able to use a telephone or computer to contact a central database with a serial number for the global positioning device. Using three satellites, the toy company would then be able to trace the child anywhere in the world.

Yet according to the New Economics Foundation, its new Measure of Domestic Progress (MDP) ranks 1976 as the best year on record for quality of life, though not by very much.

MDP, according to the foundation's calculations, has changed very little since the Fifties, but peaked in 1976 before falling in the Eighties, rising again in the Nineties, and levelling out again since the millennium.