It is a novel concept, and until Sir John Major outlined it yesterday, I had not heard it before. The principal purpose of lottery funding is to spread happiness, and it is the pursuit of this goal that justifies the hundreds of millions that have been, and will be, poured into Olympic sport to bring back gold.

“Have a look at the sheer joy up and down the country,” Sir John told the Today programme. “The success of our young athletes has uplifted us all.” It appears that the former Prime Minister has been up at six every morning watching the Games, and admitted shedding the occasional tear at the grit and determination of our sporting heroes.

“Fun, enjoyment, sheer pleasure - that's what the lottery is all about,” he concluded. Only “the Gradgrinds”, he said, would dissent.

To which I can only say: perhaps Mr Gradgrind had a point. “Stick to facts, sir!” he commanded in Hard Times. “Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.” It is true, no doubt, that a warm glow of pleasure suffuses the nation as it watches Britain's improbable successes in Beijing. But is there not a chill prickle of concern as we note that the cost has risen to £9.4 million per medal? And is it not succeeded by the dull thud of recognition that at least £100 million more will have to be found next time to meet the heightened expectations of Britain's performance as host country? And what about the cold sweat of realisation that the more poured into the Olympic pot, the less there is for the good causes that the lottery was set up to support?

Let's have a few more facts. Sir John mentioned the arts - just as important, he said, as sport. Well, I can tell him that there will be a lot less pleasure to be had here. The best estimate is that lottery funding will be cut by approximately 20 per cent over the next four years, although 35 per cent is frequently mentioned.

The Big Lottery Fund, responsible for handing out half the money for good causes raised by the National Lottery, has dropped from £696 million to £469 million because the Government has diverted funds to the 2012 Olympics. A diversion of more than £200 million is threatening important heritage projects, including the National Gallery's attempt to buy a set of Poussin masterpieces and the British Museum's proposed building of a new exhibition space.

Historic churches, crumbling quietly away across the country, are losing about £60 million between now and 2013, so Sir John's old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the early morning mist may find the service interrupted by leaking roofs and falling slates.

It's hard on such a brave dawn of British triumph abroad to make these points without appearing an unspeakable curmudgeon. But the idea has caught on with a vengeance, that Olympic gold can be bought, that medals follow the investment of millions in training facilities and coaching, and that those nations that triumph spend more than those who do not. What is more, we know that in the years of the credit crunch, the Government will have no spare cash to put into the Olympic pot. So when Sir John insists that lottery funding is the only way that the sporting gap can be closed, he is, inevitably, arguing that lesser causes must take the hit, and that the surge of national pride that comes every four years is to be considered more important than the low-profile, hard-working, unsung projects that the lottery was set up to deliver in the first place.

Looking down the website of the Heritage Lottery Fund, for instance, we find its past achievements recorded: the great East Window at York Minister lovingly restored, an archaeology project in Manchester, with kids disovering the excitement of digging out the past, community woodland in the far north of Scotland rescued for the community, the timbers of a Tudor ship being brought back to life. How many of these will the HLF be able to boast in its annual report of 2011? It is having to cut back its available funds by more than £160 million, a reduction of 7.8 per cent.

The real sufferers will be the small, the innovative, the community-based, the kind of enterprise that can change lives and restore morale at a far deeper level than we can get from the passing thrill of watching a rower cross the line or a sprinter breast the tape. Of course we want to see Britain winning, but the notion that we can, in the modern era of sport, achieve this without squeezing the cultural life of the nation is illusory.

It is wrong of Sir John, who deserves credit as the man who ensured that the lottery would be used for good causes, to pretend that we can do both.

There is, instead, a hard choice to be made: we either decide that the National Lottery's resources be used to feed the gargantuan appetite of the Olympic beast, winning us temporary glory in four years' time, in which case we must issue a clear warning to the arts and heritage world that it will be made to suffer.

Or we decide that, in the end, there are some things that are more important than climbing a medals table, that the deeper life of the nation needs succouring. It may never stand on a podium with a medal round its neck, punching the air in joy, but we neglect it at our peril.

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