I concur with the conclusions of Lord Dyson’s inquiry into the Panorama interview with Princess Diana in 1995. Martin Bashir did operate unethically and deceitfully; the internal inquiry into Bashir’s devious trickeries by former BBC Director General, Tony Hall, was ‘woefully inadequate’.
But hold your galloping horses ladies and gents. The programme was not responsible for the untimely death of the Princess- as is now being proclaimed by the many enemies of the BBC and some of her nearest and dearest. Prince William, he, who will be king one day, states: ‘ [the programme] made ‘a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse’ and, contributed significantly to her ‘fear, paranoia and isolation’. Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, who was also duped by Bashir, sees ‘a line’ between the interview and fatal car crash. After all these years, the values of the monarchy and nobility remain as backward as ever.
Take William’s salvo. In 1994, Prince Charles, in a long TV interview with his very good friend, Jonathan Dimbleby, admitted adultery with his then mistress Camilla, but only after the marriage ‘had broken down irretrievably’. Incensed by his half-truths and self- absolution, Diana first approached the Telegraph’s editor Max Hastings, who wouldn’t touch the explosive material. Panorama was the next stop. Does William think his father, a man, had the right to speak out but not Diana, a royal, royally maltreated by the firm? Does he really believe his parents’ relationship could have gotten any worse than it already was? Now to Earl Spencer. A man of his class, he had refused to let Diana use a garden house as a bolthole on his vast estate, after the divorce. This aloof and chilly chap now intimates that the Panorama interview resulted in Diana choosing an unsuitable lover, going off to Paris and provoking paparazzi frenzies, and in her death. Really??
In fact, at the time, Diana seemed to be becoming freer and more confident than ever before. In a letter dated 22nd of December 1995, she confirmed she had consented to the interview and had ‘no regrets’. That must have alarmed the palace and Charles’s faithful votaries. Furthermore Diana was dating Dodi, a non-white man, who like Meghan, was seen as an interloper and contaminator. Unlike William, Harry takes a deeper and longer view of what happened to his beloved mum. He remembers her feeling isolated, being smeared by insiders and preyed on by some press hunting packs sent by newspapers -which today are rejoicing in the BBC’s humiliation. He witnessed Meghan becoming the next victim of these sinister forces.
Diana was the not a pathetic, quivering creature they are now, once again, turning her into. As I write in my book, Ladies who Punch, though reckless and too trusting at times, she was a highly intelligent, canny and an unconsciously feminist woman who had finally found personal agency. The interview showcased the new woman and unnerved those guarding the status quo.
Hastings claimed he was concerned about the ‘vulnerable, not very bright’ Diana. The grisly grandee, Nicolas Soames, opined that Diana was showing signs of ‘mental illness and advance stages of paranoia’. (He has, since, apologized for the slur.) D. Nor will Harry or Meghan, who are also besmirched and seen as mad, bad and dangerous. What a play Shakespeare would write on Diana, the spectral avenger, who will not be subdued, sibling rivalries, and the grim house of Windsor.
I Newspaper 22nd May 2021