What was it that drove Alexander McQueen to such depths of despair that he took his own life? It's the question at the heart of any suicide, one that only one person can answer. And that person is dead. Yet within hours of the discovery of his body, it was case closed: the mystery had been solved by a crack band of journalists.

In Britain, the Mirror found that "he hanged himself because he was overcome with grief following his mother Joyce's death 10 days ago". In America, the Wall Street Journal showed its news values were a match for Fleet Street's finest by adding: "He was inconsolable after the suicide in 2007 of stylist Isabella Blow, the woman credited with kick-starting his career." While the Australian Daily uncovered a hitherto overlooked antipodean angle: he'd been "jilted by an Australian lover".

In a sense, it doesn't matter: McQueen is dead. Yet we know one thing about speculating in print about the reasons behind a suicide, about blanket coverage, and "romanticising" the dead: it will lead to more people killing themselves.

A study in 1974 found that a front-page story about suicide precipitated 58 "additional" deaths. In 2002, Professor Keith Hawton, head of the Oxford Centre for Suicide Research, described the evidence as "overwhelming". And we ourselves saw it during the grotesque media spectacle that was the Bridgend suicides two years ago, we learned that suicide can be contagious. That it can occur in clusters. And yet we've learned nothing.

Alexander McQueen did not kill himself because his mother died. Her death may have been a contributory factor, but the most common background to a suicide is undiagnosed depression. Suicide is a response to mental illness, not bereavement. And to suggest that McQueen was "overcome with grief" and to link his death to his mother's is not just dangerous, it's potentially lethal.

At least 1.5 million people will face a major bereavement in 2010. That's nearly 30,000 people this week alone, who, like McQueen, will be grieving and vulnerable; who may be depressed. Telling them that this boy wonder, this shining star, whose memory has been burnished by his early death, for whom celebrities have mourned and the Sky news chopper was scrambled, killed himself because his mother died a week ago is grossly irresponsible.

The Press Complaints Commission and Ofcom failed the families in Bridgend two years ago, and they've failed again now. The melodramatic urgency of the Sky news helicopter? The photos of a sobbing Naomi Campbell? The "testimonials", the use of banner headlines, of "simplified" explanations in place of acknowledging the complexity of mental illness? These are all factors known to increase the risk of further suicides in vulnerable people.

People like McQueen. Was he a victim of this same phenomenon? Three years ago, his "muse and mentor" Isabella Blow killed herself and there was another media frenzy. Few people outside fashion had heard of Blow until she was pictured on front pages and eulogised in print. If you want evidence of a splashy, glamorous death, Blow's is a textbook example. Except it wasn't. She drank Paraquat. And died a slow, agonising death. She was a fashion heroine who died the most fashionable death of all: young, newsworthily, with her looks intact.

A fact that surely did not go unnoticed by "her muse and mentor".

Did we help kill McQueen? It's a possibility. Because Isabella Blow's death was already part of a suicide cluster: Blow's grandfather killed himself. As did her husband's father. And then she did.

Now McQueen's death is added to that toll. And it's not a case of if this cluster grows. It's when. The Samaritans say it's as if "permission has been given", particularly among those who identify in some way with the dead. Or the spurious made-up "reasons" that journalists have supplied.

You can have too much money, Dave. Ask the King of Chavs

Does money make you happy? Yes, it does. It's easy to forget this point at times, particularly when politicians are trying to convince you otherwise. But having no money is miserable: you can't stand your round and there are nasty side-effects such as death.

On the other hand, lots of money won't make you lots happier. We know this but it's still reassuring to be told it again. By Michael Carroll, for example, the "King of Chavs" who won £9.7m on the lottery eight years ago, and who's blown the lot on Hummers and lapdancers. Not that he's bothered. "I haven't got two pennies to rub together," he told reporters last week. "And that's the way I like it."

Good for you, Michael. You might be a feckless layabout but you've made better intellectual progress than the Conservatives. Because on Wednesday, David Cameron gave a speech to TED – the Californian brainfest attended by the likes of Bill Gates and Al Gore – a speech that was supposed to encapsulate his Big Idea.

And this big idea? That we're going to have to work out a way to be happy without money. The Tories are going to employ behavioural economics to persuade us so, "by going with the grain of human nature rather than against it". Cameron cited Daniel Kahneman, the father of behavioural economics, who has shown that happiness has a direct correlation to income in households earning less than $60,000 in America, and none at all for anybody earning more than that. But then Cameron said: "The real problem with inequality is between the bottom and the middle, rather than to worry too much about who's making money at the very top."

What? Yet Kahneman is clear: the poor will become happier if they have more money. The rich will be not be unhappier with less money. If Cameron really believed in "enhancing the quality of people's lives", he'd find a way of harnessing this excess money rather than his current grand plan: dreaming up new ways of slashing public services.

His big idea is the carrot, not the stick. Paying people to recycle, for example, rather than fining them. Or, here's a thought: publishing the tax returns of City fat cats alongside their charitable givings? Or shaming them into submitting to Richard Curtis's Robin Hood tax. Let us help the bankers help themselves. Money is good. Lots of money isn't. Even the King of Chavs has worked that one out.

Touching times

John Terry and his wife Toni have been re-united in time for Valentine's day. In touching displays of overt public fondling, John and Toni cavorted on a decklounger in Dubai in front of the entire British press. "We are private people," Terry told a reporter from the Sun. "The pictures say more than words can say about how we are as a couple." Yes, indeed.