"I will bet you the life of most people in this room that we'll join the euro."
With an optimistic prediction the former Conservative deputy prime minister, Mr Michael Heseltine, yesterday brushed off criticism of the Millennium Dome and launched his memoirs, Life in the Jungle, with a side-swipe at the party leader to "allow freedom of expression" on the single currency.
The challenge for Mr William Hague and the Conservative Party, he said, was to unite the party and come to terms with divisions over Europe. It was "extraordinary", he said at the launch of his memoirs in London, that someone like the proEuropean former chancellor, Mr Ken Clarke, was not a leading member of the Shadow Cabinet since he was "incomparably the biggest personality" within the pro-European wing of the party.
Offering Mr Hague advice on how to end division and "attract back" the raft of voters who either stayed at home or voted Labour or Liberal Democrat at the last general election, Mr Heseltine stressed that the relative exclusion of the Europhile wing of the party had to end.
"The only way to do that is to come to terms with the European division which is fundamental and is real," he insisted. "There is a division, they [the Conservatives] should recognise it.
"They should unite the party around the acceptance that there's going to be a referendum and let the decisions be made there and then they can bring back people of real substance and stature on to the front bench and I think that would enrich the Tory party," he said.
Earlier, as the Labour MP, Mr Jeremy Corbyn, called on the minister responsible for the Dome, Lord Falconer, to "consider his position, and perhaps resign", Mr Heseltine said those who had suggested the Dome should be closed, which includes Mr Hague, were trying to score "easy political points."
Mr Heseltine, who was one of the Millennium Dome commissioners who approved this week's additional £47 million rescue package, said there would be "no financial gain" in closing the Dome early.
Pressed on the criticism over financial management at the Dome and Mr Hague's demands that it should close and Lord Falconer should lose his job, Mr Heseltine said: "He is not alone. There is a general, easy facility to say `why don't you close it?' We looked at all these options, and the financial attractiveness of doing so does not exist."
Yesterday, during a visit to the Confederation of British Industry's global conference in Scotland, Mr Hague repeated his call that the Dome should close immediately, saying the project was "haemorrhaging" money.
Urging the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, to make a full apology for the mismanagement of public money given to the Dome, Mr Hague said it was now the "laughing stock" of the world. "I think it's time he apologised to the people of Britain and somebody in the government took responsibility. At the moment, New Labour is about never having to say you're sorry."