The Dome - symbol of emptiness

The view that the Dome lacks a purpose is not one I share, since to me it seems a godsent illustration of the thesis of this book. The real reason for pitying those who live under totalitarian regimes, it has been said, is that they are condemned to a lifetime of enthusiasm. Nothing is more wearisome to the spirit than the insistence by the state that its citizenry celebrate themselves and their achievements, and the reluctance of the British to obey the injunction of sundry grinning ministers, journalists and officials to celebrate to order may help to account for their ambivalent attitude to the Dome. The psychology that led to its construction could hardly be more revealing of our ruling caste's state of mind. Priggish, hollow, self-aggrandizing, vapidly jokey, mincingly patriotic, cynically populist, massively patronising, mediocre to its soul and curiously provincial - the Great White Wen of Greenwich is a monument to the new elites erected by themselves.

"What does it mean to be British in the Year 2000?" The question, inscribed above the entrance to the Dome's "self-portrait" zone, seems an invitation to yet another round of national self-applause. Yet it also suggests some uncertainty. And sure enough the answer our ruling castes provide is as perplexing as the question: "It means being part of a nation that is at once creative, honourable, brave, and yet able to laugh at itself." Aside from the faintly authoritarian echoes ("Long live the creative achievements of Soviet Man!" was a standard communist slogan), there are other problems with this.

Our political, cultural and business elites who together devised the Dome have taken it into their heads to shower praise on us. How are we, the brave, the creative British people, honourably to respond? Do we lower our eyes and stammer, "Oh really, you shouldn't"? Do we cast off self-doubt, clasp hands and stride towards the future with firmer steps and uplifted gaze? Or, as a nation uniquely able to make fun of itself, do we dismiss this pitiful piece of marsh-mallow nationalism with a great peal of our unique, self-mocking laughter?

What officialdom clearly intended as a tribute to the health of the national psyche has the opposite effect. The bit about laughing at ourselves is especially worrying. A nation genuinely at ease would not need to bolster its self-image by boasting to itself about its penchant for self-deprecation. Nor do genuinely self-deprecating people simultaneously trumpet their virtues - their bravery, their creativity and the rest - unless of course they are schizophrenic, or otherwise troubled in their minds. And a country of brave, creative people which pours 'mockery on itself would indeed suggest a disturbed psyche. So one of two things must be true: either we are overstating our virtues, or our self-mockery is in some degree false.

That single inscription in the Dome - cloying, banal, stupid as only high authority can be, and excruciatingly de haut en bas - sums up everything about the project. The patronising aspect of the Dome is the most significant thing about it. For a people to be patronised by its elites, even when they are distinguished statesmen, generals, or cultural figures, is distasteful enough. To be patronised by new elite mediocrities is an affront to an entire society. Nothing could symbolise the fraudulence of our egalitarian oligarchs better than the spectacle of Lord Falconer, Minister for the Dome, friend of Tony Blair and a well-todo lawyer whose children attend private schools, insisting to his fellow unelected peers in the gilt and red Upper Chamber that large numbers of the populace were having a most entertaining and instructive time at the millennial Dome.

From its beginnings the Dome was a top/down affair, a populist extravaganza foisted on a sceptical public from above. The flavour is New Labour but politically it was a cross-party initiative, and had the Tories continued in office it is unlikely that its fate or contents would have been much different. Implicit in its conception and execution was a kind of perky, Boy Scout nationalism that transcends conventional politics and is designed to appeal to what Dr Johnson once unkindly called "plebeian patriotism". Sceptics were duly branded as lacking an ambitious national spirit; as in the past, when in trouble, elites always have the patriotic card at the ready.

A couple of examples deserve to be recorded. In a letter to Tony Blair encouraging him to go ahead with the project after he came to office, Simon Jenkins, the columnist, a leading member of the Millennium Commission and an indefatigable promoter of the Dome, wrote:

"Greenwich will be the world's one big Millennium celebration ... German, French, Italian and American planners all concede Britain's leadership here... Such events are milestones in a nation's history ..."

The notion of foreigners "conceding our leadership", questionable at the time (if there was ever a race to see who could spend most on the Millennium we were the only ones in it) becomes risible in retrospect, with the appointment of a Disney-trained Frenchman to rescue the Dome from disaster. The second example are remarks made by Peter Mandelson, also a leading Dome proponent, and for a time the minister responsible:

"There are too many in Britain who have forgotten what it is to be great as a country. Too many people have lost their ambition. Too many people just think that, well, we'll take second place to others who are better at doing these things ... It's just a mentality. Lack of confidence. Lack of a sense of bigness or greatness by some people in Britain. I think it's pathetic. I hate it." Echoes of the old elites, of the bufferish tendency, are unmistakable.

There is nothing wrong with national ambition, or with thinking big. But to chide people for lacking a sense of greatness when they decline to exalt banality is a perverted form of patriotism. To anyone who has visited this "milestone in a nation's history", seen the paltry exhibits, read the priggish slogans, and shuddered at the crassness of the entire demeaning enterprise, the self-deception of those involved in its planning and promotion is breathtaking.

How can they not have known? My guess is that they did, but so what? As Mandelson was quoted as saying, "You have to remember that most people lead very hum-drum lives." The odour of cynicism inherent in any populist enterprise - "never mind if the aim is low, they will enjoy this, this will be nice for them" - pollutes the Greenwich air. How can such mediocrity of aspiration be reconciled with Jenkins's assurance about foreigners conceding our leadership, or with the high ambitions for the nation proclaimed by Mandelson? To that there seems no answer, except to note that flauntingly patriotic elites, new or old, frequently turn out to have remarkably low expectations of their countrymen. For in the end they are not rejoicing in their nation, or its people. They are rejoicing in themselves.

The self-deception emerges clearly from the Dome's official history, written up by Adam Nicolson in a portentously entitled book, Regeneration. The conclusion reads:

"The vision of the potent individual, embedded in the community of which he is part, which is familiar enough in the liberal American understanding of the relationship between self and society, has not until now been much of a presence in Britain. If the Dome manages, in some way, to liberate us into that new, ardent but humane vision of ourselves, then that will be a great legacy and the whole venture will have been more than worthwhile."