Ministers were advised to turn the Millennium Dome project into a children’s hospital named after Diana, Princess of Wales, as the controversial scheme came close to being dropped by the Labour government.
Sam Chisholm, the New Zealand broadcasting executive brought in to rescue the millennium scheme, believed that naming the alternative project after Diana, who died in August 1997 at the height of disquiet over the planned dome, would have the added bonus of annoying the royal family, newly released papers show.
Chisholm also suggested selling 2,000 apartments for £2 million each with buyers offered a British passport, a proposal described by a senior aide to Tony Blair, the prime minister, as “loopy”. The proposal came during growing cabinet pressure for the government to cancel
