OPPOSITION politicians bluster in high dudgeon today over claims that the government is milking cash from the National Lottery for state spending and that, as a result, money for culture, media and sport had fallen by a third since 1993.

But while they complain that the government has reneged on its pledge not to use lottery funds as a substitute for general government spending, voters are unlikely to regard this as a sin when they see the cash buying such things as cancer scanners rather than funding the arts, heritage projects or village cricket.

The contrast of lottery money going on hospital scanners - for which £150 million will be announced by the government this month - with the huge outlays for the Sir Winston Churchill's papers and the Royal Opera House, for the benefit of often well-heeled minorities, suggests that, where once priorities were awry, they are now falling more in line with how the public would like to see this extra revenue spent.

But if it is true that state expenditure on areas such as health and education has fallen since the government launched the New Opportunities Fund to channel lottery cash into health, education and environmental projects that were supplementary to mainstream provision, then, perhaps, Labour is eroding the principle that such money should not be used as a substitute for state spending. Yet, even if the government was to plead guilty, it would be swiftly pardoned by most people since they would prefer the lottery billions to be ploughed into health and education - and directly and routinely rather than for the 'top-up' projects that the New Opportunities Fund caters for.

And the complaint that the government's raiding of the lottery allows it to peg taxation and, so, buy votes is a red herring.

For if it was to sensibly follow the public's intentions and openly make the lottery another source of revenue for the Exchequer, then, overnight, it would become simply another form of taxation and a voluntary one at that.

The projects which at present benefit from the lottery are, even allowing for the bizarre ones like South American guinea pig farming or pub outings for East Lancashire arthritis sufferers, often worthy, but they are all luxuries when compared to basics like health and education, which are suffering the effects of long waiting lists and bulging class sizes for lack of real resourcing.

Lottery revenue for state funding? It's a winning ticket.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.