Blair under attack on Dome

Millennium Dome: The cause of a political storm

Prime Minister Tony Blair was coming under personal attack on Monday following weekend reports that he forced the Millennium Dome through in the teeth of disagreement from most of his cabinet.

Liberal Democrat Dome spokesman Norman Baker called for Mr Blair to make a Commons statement setting out exactly how the decision to go ahead with building the Greenwich attraction was made.

And the Conservative Party was expected to step up efforts to pin the blame on the prime minister during a Commons debate on the troubled project on Monday.

Documents leaked to the press at the weekend appeared to indicate many cabinet members had deep reservations about going ahead with the Dome.

Gordon Brown: "Series of worries"

Mr Baker said: "The Tories left Labour with a lame duck, but Labour turned it into a white elephant.

"The Dome has been an unmitigated disaster and yesterday's revelations show this goes right to the top of the government.

"We now need a clear statement from the prime minister himself."

Cabinet reservations

A leaked minute of a cabinet meeting appeared to show that a number of senior ministers, including Chancellor Gordon Brown and Education Secretary David Blunkett, had advised against proceeding, according to The Mail on Sunday newspaper.

But Mr Blair is said to have told them the scheme had to go ahead and it appeared none of his ministers, even those with serious reservations, wished to contradict him.

The Mail on Sunday published the leak at the weekend, describing it as the first full record of a cabinet meeting. Such details are usually suppressed for 30 years under laws governing Whitehall secrets.

At the meeting, held in June 1997 - shortly after Labour came to power - Mr Blair is quoted as saying: "It is an important decision and we should proceed in principle."

The only alternative would be to write off "huge sums" of public money which had already been committed to the scheme, he is said to have added.

David Blunkett: "Deeply against"

According to the newspaper Mr Blair then left the meeting to attend a memorial service, leaving Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in the chair.

A dozen cabinet ministers then objected to the project but eventually decided to go ahead with it, even after admitting they could not blame the previous Conservative government if it went wrong.

The newspaper quotes Mr Brown as voicing a "series of worries" about the Dome, and Mr Blunkett, saying he was "deeply against" it.

'Dishonesty'

Chief Whip Ann Taylor suggested the money for the project could be spent on schools and hospitals instead, while International Development Secretary Clare Short warned of a "political disaster".

The report says the cabinet agreed that despite their misgivings, if Mr Blair backed the Dome they should rubber-stamp it.

Foreign Secretary Robin Cook was quoted as saying "If Tony has made a decision, we'll all have to support it", before going on to speak of his own "grave" anxieties about the project.

Shadow culture secretary Peter Ainsworth said the leaked documents exposed "the dishonesty at the heart of this government on this issue".

He said the report showed the hypocrisy of Labour's attempts to blame Tory mistakes for the Dome's failings.

Downing Street has sought to pour cold water on the leak insisting: "There will be no leak inquiry because there has not been a leak. No cabinet papers remotely resemble the account in the Mail on Sunday."

The revelations come just days after the publication of a damning report by the National Audit Office into the running of the Greenwich attraction.

Among the criticisms heaped on the Dome in the report were that it was an inherently risky project, mismanaged and financially weak before it even opened.