Why is Stonewall getting money from the National Lottery?

The Sunday Times reports that the National Lottery has awarded just shy of £500,000 to Stonewall, expressly for the purpose of political lobbying (aka 'leadership, media and influencing'). Stonewall has an annual income of over £7m, and reserves of nearly £5m.

We've had a grant from the Lottery of £500k too, to help build a community centre for one of the most deprived areas in South Somerset. Our annual income (at St. Peters church Westfield) is about £17-18k, reserves are around £12k. So it would take us a few years to come up with the money ourselves, from a community which doesn't actually have those resources in the first place. One of Stonewall's founders is Sir Ian McKellen, who has an estimated net worth of $55m.

The Lottery is already a deeply flawed system for funding public goods. It is predominantly played by those on lower incomes, and the funding itself doesn't go back into the poorer communities who generate most of it. I have serious questions over why a well resourced, well connected group with nearly £5m reserves should get any of this cash at all, when we are surrounded by food banks, homelessness and local support services for children and vulnerable adults closing own left right and centre. I'm grateful to the Lottery: Building Communities team for the £1/2m that Westfield is getting, but the mission creep in other parts of the organisation is serious cause for concern.

The National Lottery: pet parasite of the nation.

It's amazing how quickly we come to regard institutionalised sin as part of the national furniture:

There are those who claim that to argue against a pastime which gives moments of pleasure in ordinary lives is elitist and snobbish. The truth is the very opposite. It is the Lottery which is the ultimate in social divisiveness. The poor make regular contributions to the rich; in return, one out of many millions will be rewarded and held up as an example of the good fortune which could befall any of them. Could there be a more cynical form of elitism?

If Conservatives truly believed in the importance of work and the market, they would oppose the National Lottery. If those on the left disapproved of exploitation of the vulnerable, their position would be the same. Yet in politics and in the media, it is given a free ride.

Camelot has announced that the Lottery is being revamped. Its central message will, of course, remain unchanged. Your life can be transformed by greed and gambling.

more here. 

As reported last week, Camelot are doubling the price that Lotterites will have to pay for their weekly fix, offset by rises in payouts to the miniscule number who actually win. Did you notice the big national debate that kicked off? Me neither, with the above article being one of the exceptions.

Gambling is a cancer on the poor, sucking most money out of the most deprived communities. A local set of shops in one of the less prosperous parts of  Yeovil has seen several businesses and retailers fail, yet the bookies carries on. The gambling industry has been strangely immune to the recession, with year on year increases almost across the board even since the banking crash. . 

Meanwhile some of the MPs who are supposed to scrutinise this are in the pay of the gambling industry. One  bad but possibly credible argument for raising MPs salaries is that it will make them harder for vested interests to buy, but with several billion to play with I can see the gaming industry comfortably outbidding whatever salary we give our legislators. Government statistics show that problem gambling has increased, despite the recession, yet what's happening to address this? At least the Camelot price hike might put a few more people off the gateway drug of the Lottery, though I doubt this has come high in their considerations. 

The gambling industry is a parasite, and the Lottery is its equivalent of bread and circuses. If the BBC can devote prime hours each week to promoting the Lottery, then don't expect them to host a national debate on its merits. That's going to have to come from somewhere else, but we have to have it.