Has a glass ever looked more half-full? And yet, at the same time, more half-empty? Those of us who have doubted Tony Blair's wisdom in applying this form of efficacy-evaluation to the political mainstream can only concede its aptness to the work of the national lottery commission, and hang our heads. For it is, in its way, a perfect summary of the lottery outcome.  On the one hand the glass is half-full: Branson, the crown prince of gittishness, has lost. On the other, the glass is half-empty: Camelot, a practised gang of profiteers, has won. You don't know whether to laugh or cry, do you Tone? Well, you do actually. That little tear glistening in the corner of one of Branson's eyes, as he took in the tragic scale of this abrupt fortune-reversal, was the funniest thing since the death of little Nell.  Then again, the revival of Camelot's fortunes must be terribly distressing for New Labour. It is only five years, after all, since the first waves of revulsion caused by Camelot's surging, 1m-a-week profits had Blair and his shadow cabinet queueing up to denounce Camelot and promise their own, cleansing reforms. "Camelot has a licence to print tickets and another to print money", objected Jack Cunningham, then shadow heritage spokesman, who went on to describe the operator as "another private monopoly set up by a Conservative government".   In his celebrated "People's Lottery" speech, Tony Blair confirmed that he would open bids for a non-profit-making operator in 2000, "so we can release more money for the benefit of good causes". He pointed out that "No other country in Europe runs a private profit-making lottery". Meanwhile, Chris Smith, shadow heritage secretary, declared that Labour would make sure that, "the lottery serves the people". He said: "The government promised that the lottery would benefit every man, woman and child in Britain. Instead, the distribution of money has become a joke."   Since when the joke has got progressively more side-splitting. In fact the story of Labour and the lottery is, in some ways, even more comically terrible than that of Labour and the dome. Labour had not, in opposition, set its face against the dome. And where the dome builders were culpably vainglorious, the lottery commissioners seem to have been plain thick. The great similarity between these two calamities, of course, is that no one of political consequence is going to be held accountable   for the mess.  Just as the dome emerged as a natural disaster, a force of nature no man could possibly have tamed, so the awarding of the lottery licence is already being portrayed as a task so impossibly huge and complex - think of all those awesome piles of papers! Think of all those big sums! - that we should be grateful that anyone has been found to run it at all, even the beastly old monopoly we all despised back in 1995.   Like the genesis of the dome, the selection of a lottery licence will turn out to be so Byzantine a procedure that its complexities can never be satisfactorily explained. We shall never know, for example, why Smith chose to fill his spanking new quango, the national lottery commission, with five people who so consummately lacked any sign of having the "wider range of knowledge, experience, and expertise" that this body was supposed to "bring to bear on lottery regulation". The emergence of Dame Helena Shovelton will remain, for ever, a mystery.   Perhaps the commission's task might have been easier had it received more bids. But when the deadline fell, it had just two to consider: one from the fat cats, one from the Cheshire. Branson, recently dubbed Sir Richard by Blair and appointed to Smith's creative industries taskforce, would describe winning the lottery as "the most important thing in my life".  Why did he want it so? Not, we know, out of "self-glorification", because Branson has decided to sue Tom Bower, his unauthorised biographer, for supplying this explanation. But if not self-glorification, then what? The simple desire to do good? Possibly. Then again, a job as Britain's Lord Bountiful could not   adversely affect Branson's other interests, all of which depend on the bearded person of Branson for their successful branding.   Far from instilling doubts about his motivation, the potent Branson brand seemed to appeal powerfully to the commission's chairman Dame Helena and her band of Shoveltons. So much so, that when the dame announced in August that neither bid would do, it was Branson, alone, who got a second chance, a piece of favouritism which would have most toddlers reeling with sympathetic indignation. Branson exulted that his success would make it "worthwhile being born".   Camelot, having been everywhere obituarised, successfully sought a judicial review. At this point another cabinet minister might have disbanded his commission and started again. Smith did not. In court, his commission defended itself on the grounds that its process had been like "an architectural competition", in which the People's Lottery had produced a building that was "very nearly there" (a claim which hardly conforms with this week's revised "risky" verdict). The judge, as we know, disagreed, describing the commission's behaviour as "conspicuously unfair", "unlawful" and "an abuse of power".    Astonishingly, Dame Helena did not instantly resign. Quite the opposite: she defended her decision, and was, even more incredibly, supported by Smith - who presum ably believes that "conspicuously unfair" conduct is something that might afflict anyone. Only after a week did Dame Shovelton resentfully agree to go, attributing her departure - in a very dome-like way - to "media vilification".   Her four, equally conspicuously unfair colleagues (for the judgment had been unanimous) chose - presumably with Smith's blessing - to remain. It must have been obvious to Lord Burns, Shovelton's successor, that the commission was now irredeemably discredited as well as none too bright - but thanks to the earlier prevarication and mistakes, there was now no time to replace these incompetents.  The appointment of new commissioners, Lord Burns said, "would delay the process by several months ... the risks regarding that are much greater than the risks in carrying on". Well, we shall see. Burns will just have to hope that a spokesman for the People's Lottery was being honest, in October, when he said: "We have absolute confidence that Lord Burns will be fair and impartial."    Branson is not famed, however, for shrinking from litigation. On the contrary. According to Bower, Branson considered seeking a judicial review back in 1994, when he was first refused the lottery licence. This week he was already asking "do we or do we not go to court?"   If he does go, then the referral of this extraordinary mess back to courts will be no more than the logical continuation of a saga which seems, in the absence of any competent leadership from those nominally in charge, to have been settled from the start, by the wrangling of professional lawyers. The commission made its initital "conspiciously unfair" decision with the approval of the treasury solicitors. This was overturned in court after successful argument by Camelot's QC. Lord Burns' deliberations have been overseen by the city firm, Freshfields, which has also, by coincidence, previously worked for Branson, Camelot and GTech.   And, some may think, why not? Given a choice between Shovelton and Smith and these brainy solicitors and barristers, which would you choose? Wouldn't it be simpler and quicker, given the obvious shortage of suitably qualified public figures, if we just abandoned the pretence of democratically elected government, and appointed a bunch of tip-top lawyers to do the job instead? Then you think of Lord Falconer and Lord Irvine, Lord Grabiner and Lady Kennedy - and remember, that's exactly what Blair is doing. It's just that he hasn't quite finished.  Statements The lottery commission<br />Hilary Blume: why I resigned Related stories<br />  Explained: the lottery bids   <br />November 10 2000: The debate between who will run the lottery continues  Useful links National lottery<br />The Lottery Commission<br />Camelot   <br />People's Lottery