The New Year should be a time of joy, of excitement, of eager anticipation for the months ahead.

For some foolhardy souls, it is even an opportunity to make ambitious resolutions.

So why is it that I am already seething with rage? Should I mind that we are all being treated like morons? I had my say about the fiasco of the Millennium Dome and the sacking of the chief executive Jennie Page way back last February. I had no intention of returning to the subject. But the latest developments have driven me to the brink of frenzy.

You and I are now considered so stupid we are being told it is reasonable for Dome bosses to share £1million in bonuses - including a staggering £200,000 for the shamed Jennie Page. This is the company that managed to attract only half the 12 million visitors needed to make it a successful venture. And here is an even more horrific figure. Every ticket sold had to be subsidised with £100 of public money. Your money. My money.

It is hardly surprising that Cabinet Ministers, who have condemned huge bonus payments in the City and elsewhere, are becoming uneasy about these potential Greenwich handouts. The total cost of the £828million Dome is the most shameful waste in the history of public spending in Britain. And astonishingly, the Dome Minister Lord Falconer who failed to get to grips with the disaster, still refuses to accept any of the blame. He not only remains a member of the Tony Blair cozy inner circle but took Cherie Blair and her children to the closing night celebration party on New Year's Eve.

And lest I should be accused of Blair-bashing again, the former deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, who conceived the whole mad escapade in the first place, is making an even bigger fool of himself. He is now asking us to believe the Dome should be kept open for another six months in the lunatic hope it might start making a bit of money.

No wonder the man is quitting politics to spend more time with the trees in his arboretum. And of course, he is joined by his own crony Simon Jenkins, the former Times editor, who was with him right from the start.

He wrote to Tony Blair promising the Dome would be Britain's proudest creation and proudest boast in the year 2000.

The poor dear still refuses to concede it has been a disaster. If all that wasn't enough it now seems it is going to be sold off cheaply like a New Year sale bargain.

So yes, I have rage and resentment in abundance that political and business leaders treat us like unthinking sheep. And every ounce of my abundant cynicism about political hypocrisy was endorsed by New Labour's refusal to come clean about its £2m donor until Lord Hamlyn himself cooled their red faces.

All this anger - and it's only January 5.