But, in the words of the Conservative culture spokesman Peter Ainsworth: “Who would buy a used Dome from this Government?”
Mr Ainsworth may be allowed his gloat at the discomfiture of ministers. But he and his party should never be allowed to forget that it was they who came up with the original proposal. That well-known Tory memoirist Michael Heseltine serves still as a Millennium Commissioner. Indeed, the list of guilty men and women associated with the Dome is a very long one. Partly for this reason, it has been difficult to apportion responsibility for all that has gone wrong.Certainly, it is grossly unfair and patently absurd to blame the man currently responsible for it, Lord Falconer, for all of the Dome’s problems. It is not his fault that the contents failed to live up to expectations. It may indeed be the case, as Lord Falconer points out, that it has still been the most popular paid-for visitor attraction in the country; that those who visited it enjoyed it; and that a neglected corner of London has benefited from regeneration.But it is not necessary to denigrate the Dome to recognise the single most potent fact about the project: that it has been a vast and unmitigated financial blunder involving a waste of perhaps £1bn of public funds, upon which there were many better calls.

Admittedly, most of that money was spent cleaning up the site long before Lord Falconer arrived on the scene. But he has been politically responsible for the Dome since he took over from Peter Mandelson in December 1998, and is certainly accountable for the failed Nomura deal. If Lord Falconer cannot satisfactorily account for this, then he must learn the hard way why democratic politics can be a rough old trade, and resign.It was Mr Mandelson, another guilty man, who said that if the Dome was a flop, “we will never be forgiven”. That is true, and ministers would be well advised to recognise the public’s anger. While no government deserves to be judged solely on the basis of one episode, even a fiasco like this one, the Dome has done nothing to help the public to keep faith with New Labour.. Back in the Eighties, the American sports broadcaster Howard Cosell made a hugely publicised stand against what he considered the shameless immorality of professional boxing. After taking off the earphones at ringside, having delivered a commentary that amounted to a diatribe against the match-making which had just produced a world heavyweight title fight in which reigning champion Larry Holmes had pounded at will the face of his challenger Tex Cobb, Cosell announced that he would never work another pro fight.

Back in the Eighties, the American sports broadcaster Howard Cosell made a hugely publicised stand against what he considered the shameless immorality of professional boxing. After taking off the earphones at ringside, having delivered a commentary that amounted to a diatribe against the match-making which had just produced a world heavyweight title fight in which reigning champion Larry Holmes had pounded at will the face of his challenger Tex Cobb, Cosell announced that he would never work another pro fight.
Predictably, reaction was mixed Some praised the principle of Cosell. Others pointed out that this hugely successful former lawyer had a genius for personal publicity and that he had ridden remorselessly on the coat-tails of Muhammad Ali.Now that Ali, a shot-through fighter who had also been beaten fiercely in the ring by Holmes, was gone, Cosell was bailing out at a time when the richer pickings of the old game had disappeared. Certainly it was true that Cosell’s high profile had hardly been based on affection. In the blue-collar bars across America that tuned in to Monday Night Football, a popular raffle prize was getting to throw a brick at the screen as Cosell pontificated.Red Smith, the great columnist, said “I’ve tried hard to like Howard”; and once, when at a New York cocktail party Cosell bawled across the room, “Smith, tell these bozos how many great sports broadcasters there are in the world,” he responded, “One less than you think, Howard.”But about one thing there was no doubt Whatever its motivation, Cosell’s gesture struck a chord. It still sounds today, and with a particular force as the Olympic flame wends its way through the Australian bush, ready for the opening of the games in Sydney on Friday.Today, along with thousands of other sports writers, I am taking the plane for Sydney But with some ambivalence Hopefully, that doesn’t sound too precious. It is, anyway, a fact – and one undisturbed by the conclusion that if there is anywhere on Earth more guaranteed than Australia to provide a jolt to a jaded spirit I have yet to find it.