The first was installing the giant central roulette wheel in the gaming hall being built by the Anschutz Entertainment Group which was last year finally - without any assistance from the office of the Deputy Prime Minister - awarded the licence to run Britain's first super-casino. "Our administrative costs are approaching 20 per cent of total spending, " he boasted "Excellent, excellent," said Mr Blair "Perhaps we should extend the idea to other services too We could give people a choice of fire brigades. I'll have to tell Gordon..." Blair: 'I'm still proud of Dome' (Saturday 5 May 2007) By Norman Wispas, Political Correspondent A light drizzle fell upon the Millennium Dome in east London yesterday as the Prime Minister, as part of his farewell tour of the iconic places of Blairite Britain, paid a lightning visit to the site where two teams of contractors were hard at work. But where other hospitals have had to cut beds by an average of 25 per cent, and staff by 15 per cent, the flagship Heart of England Trust has gone the whole hog. Administrators of some of the other hospitals Mr Blair visited yesterday are hoping to follow its example. In Scotland, Mr Blair visited the Adam Smith Hospital in Pitlochrie.

There the chief executive, Iain Smoothie, explained that next year - when for the first time in the history of the NHS, hospitals have been told to make a profit - the hospital was on target to do so. After Mr Blair had left for his next hospital appointment, the chief executive, Sir Charles Crony, said: "We find hospitals run more smoothly and profitably without patients, who get in the way, cluttering things up with their drips and it frees up medical staff to earn elsewhere." Heart of England, like many foundation hospitals, is in financial difficulties, having spent a large proportion of its increased funding on pay rises for staff. "This is the kind of choice people want," he said, as he was shown around the new building, where half the beds are in single rooms. "It's a shift away from large public wards to more private and personal accommodation." The Government has borrowed more than £10bn for such schemes since 1997. Unfortunately there were no doctors or nurses to greet Mr Blair for the 30-minute visit, part of a whistlestop tour of 10 cities in two days. The medical staff were all on secondment to private hospitals to earn revenue to meet the massive annual repayments required under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding formula for new hospitals Nor were there any patients But the PM was undeterred. And we made sure that your schools had lots of money to spend on security machines to scan for knives and guns and things.

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough money left over to give your teachers But that wasn't our fault And of course ... Konnie: And is there any message you'd like to send to the children out there, about the world they're going to grow up in? Tony: I'm sorry, I appear to have been sitting on Shelley the tortoise. REU2359 02MAY 19:12 UK-POLITICS-BLAIR (UPDATES WITH NEW QUOTES, SECOND HOSPITAL VISIT) By Helen von Sickle Birmingham, 3 May -- Two dozen cheering hospital administrators yesterday lined the entrance of the Heart of England Healthcare Trust hospital in Birmingham to welcome the prime minister to the flagship of what Tony Blair boasts is the largest hospital building programme in NHS history. The kids may have seen me discussing the World Cup with Adrian Chiles (Adopts pose.) " Ashley Cole - he da man!" Konnie: Yes.