Biiig Surprise!

The National Lottery is being used to channel funds to pet Government projects in constituencies represented by Labour MPs, the Conservatives have claimed.

Really? Now I realise that bleating about this might do some political good but seriously, what on earth did anyone expect to happen to such funds? The first interest of a politician is to get re-elected and if there's a pot of money floating around that they can use to aid in that endeavour, who is going to be naive enough to think that they won't?

To tackle the imbalance, Mr Cameron and Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary, will unveil plans for a National Lottery Independence Bill, to make the lottery accountable to Parliament.

That's not going to make things any better: sure, it will switch the power to favour one project over another from the Executive to Parliament, but both are still made up of politicians who face exactly the same electoral imperatives. Showing their power at getting the boondoggles aids their re-election efforts. Moving the bun-fight from one group of politicians to another doesn't change anything of importance.