BBC ánd Prince Willuam

What do people think of the letter Diana wrote saying she hadn't been shown any documents and had no regrets.

I don't feel comfortable with it but can't quite work out what bothers me about it. Do you think she like Bashir and was trying to help him? Or what?

Or have I misunderstood, I didn't watch the programme last night and just seen some headlines.

The BBC has made one, admittedly large, mistake. But the Royal family didn't help Diana - Charles married her knowing that he was in love with someone else and continued that relationship. A rather naive 18 year old thrown in at the deep end. Chased by the press all the time. The press had and still has, a lot to answer for.

The following is an extract from Marina Hyde's column today in the Guardian:

^And so to people yet to take ownership of their own actions. I think we can live without today’s preposterous moralising from much of Fleet Street, who know very well the terrible things they and others did on countless occasions to get stories relating to Diana or her wider family. “Defund the BBC,” was last night’s pontification from former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie, who once put Diana’s covertly recorded private phone calls on a premium-rate line so readers could ring in and have a listen. And those were the good years. Half the stuff these guys did in pursuit of Diana stories is, mercifully for them, completely unprintable.

Alas, we will spend the next few days hearing of the BBC’s shame from some of the most shameless hypocrites in human history. The tabloids may not like Prince Harry’s reincarnation as a super-rich Californian wellness bore, but it does have the moral edge over pulling people’s medical records and hacking the phones of murdered 13-year-old girls.

But of course, few have rewritten their own history more than Fleet Street’s Diana-watchers. The overnight timing of the Paris crash meant the early editions of the Sunday papers had already been printed and contained, as usual, large amounts of unfavourable stuff about whatever else Diana had been up to the previous week. “Troubled Prince William will today demand that his mother Princess Diana dump her playboy lover”, ran an exclusive by the News of the World’s Clive Goodman, who probably scraped it from the “troubled” schoolboy’s phone. There were acres in similar vein across the titles. “The Princess, I fear,” feared the Sunday Mirror’s Carole Malone, “suffers from the ‘Open Gob Before Brain Engages’ syndrome – a condition which afflicts the trivial and the brain dead.” When Diana’s death was announced, the reverse ferrets were so total that it’s genuinely quite a surprise the Sunday Mirror didn’t next week salute itself as “the paper that broke the tragic news Di was brain dead”.

As for the editors, the person they secretly canonised was the driver, Henri Paul. Because once it was discovered he was over the alcohol limit, then what happened to Diana in the tunnel couldn’t have been anything to do with the ecosystem in which they (and the chasing paparazzi who supplied them) were such voracious feeders.

Twenty-four years later, a full-spectrum failure to acknowledge any of this means many of these same people now sit and venerate Diana in the course of slagging off her troubled son, Prince Harry (it’s what she would have wanted). They know very well the pain and turmoil of Diana’s final years, having been such a helpful part of it, yet cannot tolerate the understandably damaged child raised amid it.

And so it is that Prince Harry is now locked in his own grimly symbiotic relationship with sections of the British media. He won’t shut up, which is what they claim to want, but don’t, because his every SHAMELESS! AND! DISGRACEFUL! UTTERANCE! drives traffic. Attacks on Harry do huge business, so they continue. He, in turn, can point to those attacks as continued evidence of persecution. (Indeed, his livelihood might end up depending on wounded, marquee interviews. I’m not sure that long-term ratings lie in the Sussexes’ dull-sounding ideas for documentaries in which they themselves do not feature.) This is nearly as toxic a cycle as the one in which Diana was locked, and is unlikely to have a happy ending, or even a happy middle.

I once saw some old news footage in which the Queen and Prince Philip returned home from a royal tour after leaving their children for six months. A mere part of the welcome party, the unsmiling five-year-old Prince Charles waits dutifully – simply required to shake his mother’s hand. Anyone claiming this was entirely normal “in those days” has royal brain worms. Yet Prince Harry’s recent suggestion that neither he nor his father had an especially healthy childhood is regarded as some kind of grotesque blasphemy, mostly by people who would be quite happy to refer to the above vignette as child abuse were anyone other than the Queen involved. These days, what is expected of the royals has become so warped that it is perfectly standard to find MailOnline commenters fuming of Prince Harry “how DARE he bring his mother into this?”

Which brings us to the final group not to own their own actions: the great British public. Millions bought insatiably into Diana’s pain, and newspaper sales spiked for all the most obviously intrusive stories. The pall of blameless sanctimony that descended after her death was a stunning exercise in mass hypocrisy. People were simply incapable of imagining that they too had been part of the ecosystem, and those who pointed it out were demonised by deflection. Private Eye was monstered for its cover, which carried the headline “MEDIA TO BLAME” above a crowd of people outside Buckingham Palace. “The papers are a disgrace,” read one speech bubble. “Yes, I couldn’t get one anywhere,” ran its reply. “Borrow mine,” went a third, “it’s got a picture of the car.” WH Smith banned the edition from its stores, while taking money for the papers hand over fist.

From Diana to Harry, damaged people do damaged and sometimes very damaging things. But it’s important to remember, as far as the royal family is concerned, that the public likes it so much better that way. Royal pain sells far more than royal happiness. Panorama may have lied – but the sales tallies and the traffic figures and the ratings never do^

I will still turn to the BBC for news

Galaxy

Yes be very careful what you wish for. The BBC drives me to distraction at times but it would be a great loss.

Absolutely this.

What would we be left with if the BBC went? Privately owned, individually controlled media, with vested interests at the top who can push whatever agenda they wish.

The BBC may have its faults, but at least it is semi independent and not in the pay of media barons with conflicts of interest galore.

I agree with you 3nanny I think William's statement was just right; dignified and eloquent.

Harry has said that Diana was chased to her death while in a relationship with a man who wasn't white. He didn't say it was because she was dating a man who wasn't white but is certainly implying that the media interest he says he's so uncomfortable with, but has been relentlessly seeking since moving to America, is in part due to the fact that his wife isn't white.

Smileless2012 : my post was referring to people who did use Diana and the Bashir interview which made things worse for Diana. The head of the BBC 25 years ago has retired and now
Bashir has resigned apparently due to long Covid how convenient for him although I expect he will still have some explaining to do. Harry is completely doing his own thing and makes a lot of talk about Diana on the other hand he has said pretty much about most of the Royals I am just happier
that William hit back at the BBC and stuck up for his mother and rightly so.

Anniebach ; I remember the papps still hounding Diana even when she was seeing Hasnet Khan also there was trouble even then and Paul Burrell often drove her to meet Khan after he finished work at the hospital( (if I remember correctly he was a doctor). There was some speculation about letters Diana wrote to him and then suddenly she finished the relationship
Diana later met Dodi and their relationship began and many photographs appeared of Diana, Dodi and the boys
on Dodi's yacht which is when the press began to have a field day. This is when Diana started to become an embarrassment and the Royal family snubbed her even more. Prince Charles said himself in an interview "the woman is an embarrassment " referring to Diana.

How different things might have been IF ONLY Diana and Dodi had decided to spend that night in the Ritz Hotel in Paris instead of getting into that car.

( I make no apologies for using capital letters.)

I felt sorry for William and Harry when she did the interview. My sons are similar ages and I felt it was horrible for them to hear what she said and to think of what other boys would have said to them.

The thing that strikes me about the deception is the question of her security. She refused to have Scotland Yard security at one point, was that because of what Bashir convinced her of regarding the conspiracy against her? If so I think that must have contributed to her death, I'm sure a Scotland Yard security officer would not have accepted a drunk driver.

It is also sad to think of the people she must have turned against because she thought they were part of the conspiracy. It is very sad.

If people have respect for her and her memory maybe stop and think that she wouldn't want either of her sons to be demonised about this.

Yes be very careful what you wish for. The BBC drives me to distraction at times but it would be a great loss.

Can I add my thanks to Algerias, Lucca, Trisha, MaisieD and Luckygirl, for their contributions.

I also fear that this will be used to try and get rid of the BBC, and I see this has already started on here.

Agree oldwoman once again turning into a William & Harry fest.
The problems lie with the BBC in so many ways.

nanna8

Maybe it is time to ditch the license fee for the BBC. An anachronism is ever there was one.

That will be the BBC that in lockdown provided educational programmes for all, even those who couldn't afford wifi or had no internet access would it?

Lucca why the sarcasm for my post which was not an opinion
but a fact of the events which caused her death ?

Maybe it is time to ditch the license fee for the BBC. An anachronism is ever there was one.

Anniebach

The cause of her death was a car crash , the driver v the papps,
because Dodi Fayed And Diana chose to leave a private apartment in the Ritz hotel at night in full knowledge that the
cameras were waiting and against the advice of their security,
what was so urgent that caused them to leave the safety of the
Ritz to go to his apartment

On and on.

3nanny6 why was there some truth about Dodi Fayed not being white ? There was no problem when she had a relationship with Hasnet Khan which went on for nearly two
years, she went publicly to Pakistan to meet his family.

Harry didn’t say his mother was ‘hounded to her death because she had a boyfriend who wasn’t white’.
He reflects on the casual racism his wife has experienced. He will remember, as we do, the press frenzy that Dodi had Egyptian Muslim heritage.
Algeria’s1 - thanks for posting, Lucca, MaizieD and trisher also spring to mind as taking a broader, more compassionate view of the mental health difficulties Harry has acknowledged. His description of the impact of being with his mum when her car was being followed by paparazzi, by the sounds and feelings associated by the walk behind his mother’s coffin. I’m not a psychologist but - ptsd would be something I’d consider

I agree that William was right to speak out; and also that he is reiterating what Harry has been saying for a long time. One of them has chosen to try and find a way of working with the media to protect his family; the other has chosen to simply walk away. Both are valid choices, made for similar reasons. I criticise neither.

I find it shocking that Bashir basically invented a conspiracy against Diana in order to get her on board with an interview for his own aggrandisement. That is deeply unacceptable and has had an impact not only on Diana herself but her family, especially those vulnerable boys. That the BBC were aware there was something amiss and covered it up is a matter for grave concern.

But I fear that Boris will use this in his anti-BBC campaign and that we may lose a lot here.

Why is the fact that the driver was well over the drink-drive limit and Diana and Dodi were not wearing seatbelts ignored?

The wearing of a seatbelt saved the life of the only other passenger in the car at the time.

And now we have the unscrupulous Harry wanting to use her too.

To me Diana's life was in a downward spiral she was hounded mercilessly by papps and could do nothing without one of them trying for photos. There was an awful build up going on
and it held onto the darkest of dreading that something terrible was going to happen to her. Too many unscrupulous
people just wanted to use her and finally at the end the papps had their day hunting her down like an animal something that nobody would wish on anyone.

Probably.

I watched with admiration the statement that Prince William gave about the BBC and the Bashir interview. I do like William
a lot however I have thought lately that he has been hard faced
and unemotional about his mother the late Diana and he has said very little about her. "Wills" was her name for him and no one can say she did not love her two boys because she did. William has now gone up in my estimation of him again,
and although Harry was the one always keeping on about Diana suddenly there were her two boys both pointing the finger in the same direction to the BBC and telling all that the interview made things worse for them.
I think Harry done another statement also where he said his mother was hounded and died because she had a boyfriend that was not white. I personally think that took things a bit far and maybe he should have left Dodi out of things.
There probably is some truth in his words although I think Diana had become a huge embarrassment to the Royal family and the fact that Dodi was Egyptian did not help matters. A lot of things are out there now for the public and most of the debate will obviously continue.

Why is the fact that the driver was well over the drink-drive limit and Diana and Dodi were not wearing seatbelts ignored?

I am not saying the papps did not play a part, but would seatbelts have saved their lives.