Giving it welly: Scarfe with one of his scabrous creations

Sunday Times readers know him for his merciless weekly political caricatures. He stands in a long and honourable tradition of British satirical cartoonists from the 18th century onwards; they may make kings and governments squirm, but they are somehow licensed to put the boot in. At the Dome, Scarfe has done it again, and this time not just to politicians but to the whole nation.

We meet at the Self Portrait Zone (previously known as National Identity, which gives you a better idea of what it's about), designed by a team including the young architect Lorenzo Apicella: a simple, elegant drum with a revolving glass picture wall and a circular internal gallery. Its theme is a direct descendant of the Lion and Unicorn pavilion at the 1951 Festival of Britain - an attempt to define our national characteristics for our own amusement and the edification of baffled foreigners. But how to avoid the parochial whimsy of the 1951 precedent? The Dome's chief executive, Jenny Page, prompted by the Millennium commissioner Simon Jenkins, rang Scarfe, the best-known antidote to whimsy. He did the business.

"There was a danger, perhaps, of it all becoming rather self-congratulatory - you know, we the British are wonderful," says Scarfe. "So I was brought in to say: yes, we the British are great, BUT . . . " He immediately thought of the dark things about British life: the football thuggery, road rage and so on. "The general violence underlying the veneer of our civilisation," he explains, laughing fruitily. This boiled down to his six enormous figures, which, like everything in the Dome, seem small until you get up close to them.