"I think the UK lottery started in 1994, seem to remember it was about the same time as the company I worked for closed its doors. Both were the work of our wonderous Prime Minister John Major."

It was licensed in 1993, but effectively started functioning in 1994. Major’s predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, to her credit, was implacably opposed to the idea of a national lottery. The shop-keeper’s daughter thought there was something obscene about people being rewarded simply because they were lucky.

Part of the reason the concept took off was the promise to donate part of the profits to "good causes". That always struck me as being close to immoral; people who might have reservations about buying a ticket because it was like gambling could soothe their consciences by telling themselves it was all in a good cause.

And some of the recipients have been questionable - like the £340,000 grant that went to an asylum-seeker's anti-deportation group.

I always felt that, if these good causes were important, why weren't they being funded with government money? What kind of moral sleight-of-hand made it OK effectively to take an extra tax on the purchase of lottery tickets and make money out of people’s gambling impulses?

Then there was the issue of the fat-cat salaries paid to the directors of Camelot, the firm running the Lottery.

I won’t go into the many stories of the winners whose lives were ruined by the money, but the biggest winner of all has been the Treasury, which has raked in billions in tax. This is separate from the even more billions that have gone to "good causes".

I’m probably going to make myself unpopular here, but I loathe and despise the National Lottery.

Edited by FP on 14/09/2018 at 12:52

A man who does not believe in Climate Change appears to believe money grows on trees.(The fct that teh population is growing older and the NHS/Social Care/pesnion system needs loadsof money to cope appears to have passed by on teh other side of teh road.

Spending on systems which are not efficient is not the way forward, have a look how much money Virgin Care have made from NHS contracts, they are doing it for profit not to help people! As the NHS is being sold off and private companies are making big bucks from it expect funding to increase so that the boys club behind many of the companies can make a fast buck at the expense of the gullible public.

The public have been had for sure with many services being sold off through the backdoor, I cannot believe that more questions are not asked RE the state of the railways in this country, it is almost beyond being gullible.