LETTERS Support for the dome
Sir: Sion Simon's fly-on-the-Cabinet-wall exposé of the millennium dome saga (`How New Labour was made to love the dome', 23 August) rests on a false premise which only appears in his last paragraph. 'Branson is right . . . ' is the final clinching argument that confirms Simon's opinion, echoed in your front-page caption, that hardly anyone really wants the dome anyway.
There are in fact large numbers of people around the country, even here in the rural fastnesses of Devon, who think the project exciting and eminently worthwhile. The Festival of Britain, planned to commemo- rate the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851, is still remembered, with the only regret that most of the buildings were demolished so soon after they were built. It is obvious that the millennium project will fill just such a role, and be remembered, as the Great Exhibition now is, when the new millennium is a century and more old.
The greater part of Simon's exposé, before bringing on his counter-hero Richard Branson, is devoted to an attack on Peter Mandelson. Whether it was a remarkable augury that Mandelson's fore- bear Herbert Morrison was responsible for the Festival of Britain, or simply an uncan- ny coincidence, Mandelson has done a bril- liant job in turning around the project, act- ing almost as quickly as those who built the Crystal Palace — which took less than six months from start to finish.
Further, he has done so by acting exactly as Herbert Morrison advocated in his Fabi- an Society Lecture in 1937: `We shall need all the business ability and all the economic brains we can get hold of.' Despite all the carping, the vast majority of work on the millennium project is being done by British firms using British workmen, all of whom will take pride in the project which not a few of us will share when Mr Simon's fail- ure of vision will be long forgotten.
W.J. West
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