See What You Can Do
but as tweeted at the time
, on a deeper level too. The building is the perfect physical embodiment of the Labour Party's decade of destruction in office. Like New Labour, it was a hollow shambolic shell that was built first, and then it was decided what would fill it. The glossy exterior was in fact a poor veneer that failed to hide what a spectacular vacuous failure it was while it was run by the state. It was spun, promoted, twisted but ultimately failed.Then they sold it off to a private company, introduced market forces - there is now a thriving almost high street like array of bars and restaurants, each competing with one another and seemingly doing a roaring trade. A little bit of freedom from the state and an escape from sheer incompetence on the part of the government and suddenly, almost over night the building is a success.
There's a lesson there somewhere.
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4 comments:
I don't think my garden would be quite big enough TB and it's also a long way to go just to have a drink. :-)
Way back in 1997, long before he was rumbled by the masses, Tony Blair invited us all to judge his government by the success or failure of the Dome. Am I the only one to remember this?
The Dome itself was always something rather magnificent. It was conceived, designed and begun under the Major government, when it was being vilified for its inability to do anything right.
The patronising, fatuous and uninspiring Millennium tat that filled it, however, was conceived, commissioned and completed (late) in the early days of the first Blair government. That was in the heady time when New Labour was widely thought to be incapable of doing anything wrong.
And of course the original idea for the White Elephant was the Major Government's. Yet another example of Labour aping the Tories and us getting nowhere..