A Journey (46 page)

Unfortunately, one thing we had said ‘yes’ to was continuing with the Dome. I think as bad decisions go, it wasn’t a frightful one. Part of the problem – and I really don’t mean this as an excuse – is that we inherited the decision, and by the time we took office around £100 million had been committed, so cancellation costs would have been significant.

Actually, the original idea wasn’t bad either. Michael Heseltine had had it, and like a lot of his ideas it was big and bold and brassy. The concept was similar to that of the Crystal Palace Exhibition of Prince Albert, and the London Exhibition – which John Prescott remembered – of the Coronation year. We would put on a great British exhibition and situate it on the reclaimed swampland around the Greenwich gasworks. The trouble was that it was never wholly clear what would go in the exhibition, and the futuristic theme we wanted was fine at the broad-brush level, but elusive in the detail. So it sort of fell between multiple stools: future, technology, play, science, entertainment. It was a kind of jack of all trades and master of none.

That said, it wasn’t dreadful. It just wasn’t brilliant. The Dome team – headed by Jenni Page – worked like crazy and the whole thing was, in a sense, a miracle, given the scale of ambition. Six million people came to it, and many of them enjoyed it. We all became increasingly defensive about it, until we got to the stage – me, Peter Mandelson and Charlie Falconer especially – where if it had consisted of a man slapping everyone around the face with a wet fish, we would have stoutly held it to be a work of genius.

The simple points were that in this day and age, it wasn’t really a suitable project for government, and it never quite struck a note sufficiently attuned to the millennium. If we hadn’t inherited it, we would probably never have embarked on it. As David Yelland, the then editor of the
Sun
told us, a brilliant new hospital would have been a better government priority.

To be fair, Gordon was always against it, but I thought the pain of cancelling too great, and in any event, considered it worth a go. At the Cabinet which gave the green light, opinion was pretty evenly divided. John Prescott swung the day. I had had to leave early. He came into the chair and in a swashbuckling JP sort of way, rammed it through, mostly because he knew I wanted it and a little because he thought the idea had flair. Which it did. It just lacked sense.

The Dome itself was superb, designed by Richard Rogers, and of course we look at it now as a city landmark, instantly recognisable and giving the whole of south-east London a lift. In addition, of course, we reclaimed the land, built thousands of homes, a health centre and a school. It is also now the best entertainment venue for rock and pop in the country, possibly in Europe.

While it was in retrospect a mistake, the hysterical trashing of the whole project was never justifiable. However, it was explicable. The night of 31 December 1999 I shall never forget. I have always been awful about ‘great’ days and anniversaries – I shouldn’t be like this but I am. I never ‘got’ birthdays except for the giving and receiving of presents. Christmas Day was and is always a wonderful family time, but somehow I’m always relieved when it’s over.

I was on duty and working the night of 31 December, and yes, OK, a millennium is a big deal, but – as I feel most New Year’s Eves – I could quite happily have gone to bed early, had a good night’s rest, and woken up the next day refreshed and able to contemplate at leisure the fact that another year had gone.

Anyway, you get the point: it’s not really my thing. So I looked forward to the evening of the turn of a new millennium with all the fervour of a visit to the dentist. Actually, I would have preferred a visit to the dentist. As it turned out, it would have been less painful, quieter and certainly less stressful.

First off, I had to go and start the Millennium Wheel, with an attendant firework display and great spiralling Catherine wheel of some description. We left Downing Street on foot, with me feeling an inchoate and gathering sense of dread. At times like these, Cherie would be heroic and perfect as a foil: she was – or at least put on a great act of being – thrilled by the whole prospect.

As we moved among the crowds in Whitehall and made our way to the Embankment, people were incredibly friendly and celebratory and my mood temporarily lightened. Somehow we got to the point near Hungerford Bridge where Bob Ayling, the chief executive of British Airways, was waiting for me to start it all off. Bob had taken over running the millennium celebrations and had done a great job under hellish pressure.

‘What happens when I start it off, Bob?’ I said above the din.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘not much since it’s not actually quite ready.’ He was unflappable. I liked that. Because I was definitely flapping. Bob turned his attention to the fireworks. ‘What’ll happen is that when you press the button, they’ll go off right down the Thames.’

Right, I thought. I got to the little podium; there were cheering crowds; I think I made a little speech – emphasis on the ‘little’ – of a generally inane nature; and then pressed the button.

A few desultory fireworks sprang to life, but by a cruel stroke which afflicted all our millennium celebrations, they failed to go off in quite the spectacular fashion envisaged. Indeed, as fireworks go, I had attended somewhat livelier events at Highbury Fields in Islington on Guy Fawkes Night.

And, of course, the Millennium Wheel was not yet working. ‘I don’t think that really matters for tonight,’ Bob said cheerfully.

‘It does if it’s called the Millennium Wheel,’ I said sourly, the dread returning.

But there was no time to sulk. We had the Dome Party with the Queen to look forward to.

We were due to get there on the new Jubilee Line extension. The Tube was itself part of the development for the celebrations, and new stations were being opened. Again, a great idea; again, as the new year approached, it was a source of continual fretting. We had contractors’ disputes, union disputes and political disputes. The problem was that everyone knew they had us over a barrel – the deadline couldn’t exactly be moved, and without the extension, we couldn’t get people down to the Dome. We had left it tight. I had promised all manner of torture to my staff and ministers responsible. And I didn’t like the ‘Fingers crossed, Prime Minister’ gallows humour emanating from the London Underground management. It was a massive undertaking to get it finished, and John Prescott performed minor miracles bludgeoning people.

But millennium night was the first time it would be running. The initial nerve-racking moment came when we got to the train: would it work? Would the doors open? Would it just grind to a halt?

Anyway: it did work. It let us in and let us out, and so we got into the Dome, which was thronging; except that it wasn’t quite. There didn’t appear to be hordes of people. A lot, yes. Packed to the rafters, ready to party, no. ‘Where is everyone?’ I asked our guide from the Dome.

‘I think the connecting train from Stratford station has broken down. The station is effectively shut.’

The room swayed. ‘What?’ The Stratford station, vital to transport people to the Dome, had some wretched electrical fault and was malfunctioning. I thought of the public waiting there, the panic rising. ‘I’ve got to see Charlie,’ I said.

When Peter Mandelson had resigned, Charlie Falconer had taken over as the minister responsible. Charlie took more abuse over the Dome than it is possible now to imagine. He was wondrous throughout. Every time I saw him after yet another mauling – complete with barbs about his weight, looks, character and manner of speaking – I would say to him, ‘How are you, Charlie?’ and really mean it. He would always reply that he was loving the job and was so grateful to me for the chance of doing it, all without any apparent hint of irony. I found it awesome. His performance over the Dome was an amazing feat of self-immolation.

I found him upstairs at the VIP reception. ‘Charlie,’ I said, ‘what the hell’s going on at Stratford?’ He explained the breakdown. ‘Oh Jesus, Charlie, how many people are waiting there?’

‘A few thousand, I’m afraid. Sorry.’

I looked at him melancholically. ‘What on earth will we say when the media find out?’

‘Um, I’m afraid they will have found out already since the editors are all there waiting.’

I fear I did grab him by the lapels at this point. And I adore Charlie.

‘What? What? What the hell are the media doing there? You didn’t, no, please, please, dear God, please tell me you didn’t have the media coming here by Tube from Stratford, just like ordinary members of the public.’

‘Well, we thought it would be more democratic that way.’

‘Democratic? What fool thought that? They’re the media, for Christ’s sake. They write about the people. They don’t want to be treated like them.’

‘Well, what did you want us to do,’ Charlie said, feeling he should be fighting his corner a little, ‘get them all a stretch limo?’

‘Yes, Charlie,’ I thundered, ‘with the boy or girl of their choice and as much champagne as they can drink; or at least have got them riding in the Tube with us.’

I am ashamed to say I then shouted and bawled at him for a bit longer, while the more sensible of our party tried to find out what to do. Eventually we heard they were on their way, though possibly not in time for midnight. ‘Please don’t tell me it doesn’t matter if they’re not here for midnight, Charlie, or I will club you to death on the spot,’ I recall saying. In the end some got there, some didn’t; and anyway, the media coverage was more or less set in stone from that moment.

Meanwhile, a fresh knot of anxiety had gripped me. We had persuaded the Queen and Prince Philip to come down to the Dome to join in the fun. I don’t know precisely what Prince Philip thought of it all, but I shouldn’t imagine it’s printable. I suspect Her Majesty would have used different language but with the same sentiment. However, we all had to go through it with a cheery face and she put on her best. We sat down together. We looked at the programme.

There was an acrobatic show prior to midnight. Now this was spectacular. They were way up in the Dome performing extraordinary feats, flying through the air. They were dressed in a riot of colour and really did look and act most impressively.

Then an appalling thought struck me, and chilled me to the innards. They were doing their wild thing right above where the Queen was sitting. ‘Well, that is remarkable,’ Prince Philip said, brightening a trifle. ‘You know they’re doing that without safety harnesses?’ I swear I knew what was going to happen. I felt like someone in one of those sixth-sense movies who can see the future: from sixty feet up, one of the performers was going to fall in the middle of a somersault, hurtle down and flatten the Queen. I could see it all. ‘
QUEEN KILLED BY TRAPEZE
ARTIST AT DOME
’. ‘
BRITAIN'S MILLENNIUM CELEBRATIONS MARRED
’. ‘
BLAIR ADMITS NOT ALL HAS GONE TO PLAN
’. Britain’s millennium would indeed be famous; I would go down in history forever.

I kid you not, I joke about it now but at 11.30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve 1999, I was absolutely convinced. I have never been more relieved than when it all stopped.

Then came the ghastly singing of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Another decision; to link arms with the Queen or not. We looked at each other. I realised helplessly that to do it was ridiculous, but not to do it was stand-offish. I made my choice, stretching out my arms. She kept her options open, holding out one arm. But what the hell, she was alive, and that was the main thing.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. We finally got home around 2 a.m. ‘I thought the evening was rather fun,’ Cherie said as we clambered into bed.

‘Darling,’ I replied, ‘there is only one thing I am going to thank God for tonight, and that is they only come round every thousand years.’

The next morning I was back to the reality of the day job. We were now two and a half years into office. For the way governments work, it is a blink of an eye. For the way the public think, it is an eternity. The ‘forces of conservatism’ speech was the product, in a sense, of my frustration at being unable to align the two time zones. Some of the criticism from commentators and the public was undoubtedly unfair, but some – indeed the core of it, namely that change was too slow and insufficiently radical – I believed myself. Hence the speech.

I was learning how complex the institutions of public service were, how multiple their pressures, how vast their demands and how great the expectations were of what could be done and in what period of time. The millennium may have been an exceptional moment in the calendar, but the 1999/2000 NHS ‘winter crisis’ came with the monotonous predictability of death and taxes. And two and a half years in, people expected better.

It is hard now to look back and realise just how inevitable such crises appeared. This time it was a flu bug. It produced the sad cases of individual misfortune. It centred around a lady called Mavis Skeaton, who was not given proper treatment and died. Her family naturally were outraged. The intensive care units of the hospitals were finding it hard to cope. There were stories of people being turned away; people treated on trolleys; people waiting hours in A & E.

Quite apart from routine cases and the flu epidemic, there were patients waiting so long for operations for heart disease that they would die while waiting. I received a letter from a woman whose husband, I think, had been a
Northern Echo
photographer whom I had worked with, who had died in such circumstances. I felt it horribly, felt the responsibility and felt, perhaps worst of all, the gnawing doubt as to whether it was just time we needed or something more profound in terms of the way the service was run. If it was the latter, we weren’t scaled up to do it. And to be very frank, I wasn’t entirely sure what the answer was. That’s what I mean by learning.