The John Blunt column

SO what spin doctors did for Labour's revival, the Queen, it seems, now hopes one will - for a salary of up to £150,000 - do for the image of our royalty.

She should, I think, save her - or our - money.

For while the need for a boost in the royal family's esteem has been pointed to by a secret survey that revealed that people found they were out of touch, wasteful, not genuine, poor value for money and so forth, they are not going to find themselves suddenly better-loved by acting to a new script written by some whizz-kid out of the Peter Mandelson mould.

Though image may have a lot to do with it - the Queen, for instance, often looks like it pains her to smile and has a "too posh" cut-glass voice - only a few temporary opinion-poll points are to be gained by the aloof royals coming down to earth and acting more naturally or in a touchy-feely manner M- la Diana.

It is not that there is anything wrong with cuddling lepers or mine explosion amputees or riding bicycles like the less-pretentious Scandinavian - though such would essentially be a contrived show designed to improve the royals' own security.

What royalty needs to grasp is not more plebeian mitts, but the fact that the monarchy's time is running out anyway.

It is simply that people no longer see the point of deferring to or being in awe of someone whose right to it is...well, what?

That's what royalty as an institution is increasingly suffering from - fewer people seeing the point of it. It would be wiser and cheaper, if the Crown accepted it has a sell-by date in this day and age and allowed it to arrive gracefully instead of putting on a false face in a desperate attempt to delay it.

Masons' open and shut case

AFTER a week in which the Masons have had their pinafores put in a flap - what with Jack Straw ordering those who are judges and policemen to come out of the closet and MPs threatening the Brotherhood's leadership with jail if it refuses to say whether bent bobbies were on the square - plainly an image make-over is deemed necessary by the movement.

Thus, as probing politicians bid to shine a searchlight on the secret society, we see yet another effort by its members to convince us that, as Grand Secretary, Commander Michael Higham told the names-demanding Commons Home Affairs Committee, its members are largely "decent chaps."

For in what was said to be part of the new Masonic "spirit of openness," in East Lancashire last week we saw two lodges offering to sponsor a couple of deserving teenagers on a sailing expedition. In fact, this seems to be part of a trend on the Masons' part ever since they their name was dragged through the mud in East Lancashire by the now-notorious Blackburn Moat House "conspiracy" case involving police officers in which a father and son ended up wrongly being accused of assault after intruding on a lodge function 10 years ago.

I have noticed, for instance, publicised sizeable Masonic donations to such things as the SuperScan appeal, the Mind Centre in Blackburn, Guide Dogs for the Blind and the St John Ambulance.

We have also witnessed "open days" at Masonic Temples in East Lancashire and the issuing of leaflets to public libraries to explain to borrowers what the Brotherhood is.

Evidently, this is all part of a concerted drive for better public relations. But is it really openness, or just lip-service to it?

For while I can understand Masons wanting to be coy about being identified as sorts who engage in silly, rolled-up-trouser-leg and breast-baring rituals, if only to spare themselves the mockery of the rest of us, what I cannot understand is why they would still protect the identities of anyone involved in a conspiracy intended to make innocent people suffer injustice - and yet talk about openness.

"Decent chaps" don't do that.

Leading the Arts Council a merry dance

THE latest lottery lunacy is a grant of £5,000 to a dance group who describe themselves as "female sexual entertainers."

Actually, the Dragon Ladies, who sport huge latex breasts and prance about lewdly on stage in six-inch stiletto heels and mini skirts, are a bunch of silly beggars who are smart enough to call what they do "art" and so can qualify as a good cause entitled to a lottery hand-out. This tripe may be what the Arts Council, behind this grant, considers to be useful and worthwhile, but lottery punters, sick to death of the stupid squandering of their money, would I am sure like to wallop them round the ears with those rubber wotsits to knock some sense into them.

However, encouragingly, we see the government is gathering the nerve to grab the lottery loot for far better uses - as shown by the leaked proposal to scrap TV licences for pensioners and to use money from the lottery to make up the lost revenue to the BBC.

We have already had a start in this much more sensible direction with the plan to use lottery cash to fund health advice clinics and after-school homework clubs.

The government should press on, all the way - and use the lottery revenue for real good causes like schools and hospitals.

No-one would complain that this would be a "misuse" of the lottery - except for a few daft types who would give to kinky women dancers with artificial chests.

The opinions expressed by John Blunt are not necessarily those of this newspaper

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