M-TH: Tony Blair's unstately pleasure dome

[Charles Brown]

Tony Blair's unstately pleasure dome


By William Pomeroy


LONDON, England - Only once in 1,000 years does a date present itself as an ideal 
vantage point for viewing such a long perspective of past and future. Jan. 1, 2000 was 
that kind of moment. Whether seen in a Christian context or from the standpoint of 
people shaping their history, it provided a unique opportunity to sum up the good and 
the bad of human experience and to call for a future based on the best of it. 

Few New Year celebrations around the world approached the millennium in that mood, 
preferring fireworks to reflection. In London, however, the New Labor government of 
Prime Minister Tony Blair went allout to erect a monument to Britain's greatness, 
spanning the past millennium and the one to come, to impress the world. 

Constructed over a period of more than two-and-a-half years, from the time Labor came 
to its present rule, was a huge peculiar edifice called the Millennium Dome. In 
actuality it was conceived by the previous Tory administration and was continued by 
the Blair government like many other Tory acts and policies. It was built on the south 
bank of the Thames River on industrial wasteland in the district of Greenwich. 

Resembling a gigantic circus tent, with its steel supporting columns thrusting up 
through the reef like exposed spines, the Millennium Dome and the 15 "zones" or 
exhibit areas within it, has cost the colossal sum of 758 million lbs. or $1.3 
billion. Furthermore, sitting remote from transportation routes, it required the 
construction of a new branch line of the London Underground with new stations. 

Above all, the Millennium Dome has been Tony Blair's project, which he has hailed 
throughout with ever-ascending rhetoric, linking it with his vague Third Way and 
expecting it to win international acclaim and votes for Labor in the next election. 

Enthused Blair: 

"This is Britian's opportunity to greet the world with a celebration that is bold, so 
beautiful that it embodies at once the spirit of confidence and adventure in Britain 
and the spirit of the future in the world. I believe that anyone interested in 
Britain's future will share my view that this is going to be a huge asset for the 
country as a symbol of British confidence, a monument to our creativity." 

The Dome was opened on New Year's Eve with a special performance to which 10,000 
peoplehad been invited. The fiasco began then. Tickets failed to reach 3,000 of those 
invited. An enormous ferris wheel the largest in the worldhad been erected on the 
adjacent river bank. It was to have its first ride for a select group to view 
celebrating London, but it had a defect and wouldn't operate. For the Thames at 
midnight a "river of Fire of fireworks" was advertised, to flow past the Dome; it was 
a dismal flop. Within the Dome, the performance was mainly of mediocre pop groups. 

Criticisms of the badly-managed Dome launching after its long preparation began to 
trickle into the media the next day but they became a flood when the Dome opened to 
the public the next day, and its zone contents were experienced. They had virtually 
nothing to do with British achievement or progress over a millennium, being chiefly 
gimmicky equipment for amusement. There was no theme, no message, no spirit of the 
future, let alone of the past or present. 

To break even on the huge cost of the Dome, a target of 12 million visitors has been 
set for the coming year, paying 20 pounds per adult (roughly 33 dollars) for 
admission. That averages out to 35,000 visitors a day. In the first week the average 
number, despite the enormous publicity build-up, was less than half of that, falling 
to 10,000 at the end of the week. By that time, in half the zones the gadgetry and 
machines had broken down. Teething problems, said managers. 

Above all the criticisms grown the enormous cost of the Millennium Dome when the 
National Health Service is in acute need of funds for hospitals, hospital beds, 
recruitment of nurses at adequate pay, and reduction of waiting lists for operations. 
As the Dome opened, a flu epidemic hit Britain, with the dead being stored in 
refrigertor trucks in car parks because of lack of morgue space. The majority of 
visitors to the Dome said it was not worth the expenditure on it and was not a fitting 
tribute to 21st-century Britain. 

One criticism is that the zones were built with the sponsorship of private companies, 
which carries with it the Inevitable commercialization advertising becoming as the 
spirit of the millennium. An extensive renovation of the Dome is preposed with the 
bringing in of more private participation, meaning more commercialization. 

In his New Year address prior to opening the Dome, Blair proclaimed that Britian in 
the coming century and millennium will be "a beacon for the world." Blair's tendency 
to be carried away by the tide of his own rhetoric has now put him in the awkward 
position of having a costly white elephant on his hands, hardly a vote winner. 

In the past millennium the British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote his in haunting 
poem, "Kubla Khan": "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/A stately Pleasure Dome decree." 

It is a poem that ends, uncompleted, in mystery and foreboding, leaving its readers 
with a wonderment of "What did it mean? What was it all about?" Tony Blair's Dome is 
likely to arouse the same questions



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