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Goodbye 2001! - The Government - and the Dome!2001, of course, was an election year and Tony Blair's Labour government comfortably won another term of office. There were major changes at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, with the departure of Chris Smith, who had held on to his job as Secretary of State through all the reshuffles of the previous years, to the back benches (and a seat on the board of the RNT). He was succeeded by Tessa Jowell, formerly of the Department of Education and Employment (now the Department for Education and Skills) (probably the most renamed government department ever!), one of whose responsibilities was the New Deal employment programme. A 54 year old former psychiatric social worker, she is a strong Blair supporter and describes herself as a "post-feminist". She was joined by Baroness Blackstone as Minister for the Arts, and Dr Kim Howells, who became the department's junior minister. It is, perhaps, a little early to make any judgements about Ms Jowell but, from the arts professional's point of view, Chris Smith is a hard act to follow. The impression so far is that, unlike Smith who very clearly has a genuine interest in the arts, Jowell is much more the career politician who sees her tenure at the department as a step on the ladder. It is interesting that Smith was not transferred elsewhere but returned to the back benches, suggesting that the Labour hierarchy felt he had "gone native", had become too close to the arts world. The Millennium Dome If the goverment had hoped that the cosure of the Millennium Dome would bring that chapter of history to a close and that it would be quietly forgotten about, then it was disappointed. "Preferred bidders" came and went, and the involvement of a major Labout Party supporter in one bidder drew accusations of cronyism. In February the contents were sold, and many theatres and companies throughout the land managed to increase their stock of lighting and sound equipment at very reasonable prices, but neither the putative high tech industrial park, national exhibition centre or any other proposed use for the site materialised. In fact, two "deals" for the sale of the Dome collapsed during the year and and it was not until December that a third was announced. Under the terms of the latest "deal", Anglo-Australian-American company Meridien Delta Limited has been apppinted an exclusive partner to work alongisde English Partnerships to take over the Dome's lease (they plan to turn it into a sports and entertainment complex) and regenerate thew Greenwich peninsula. This is not, says Lord Falconer, a "done deal" and there is much hard negotiation to be done before the deal is signed in May 2002, so the Dome could still return to haunt the government well into the coming year. We should, however, remind ourselves occasionally that the Millennium Dome was not a Labour project, but they took it over from the Tories when they came to power in May 1997. Articles Indices:
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