If the words "Rest in Peace" have any relevance, they don't apply to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Since her death in 1997, her life has been subjected to almost forensic scrutiny and bizarre conspiracy theories about her untimely demise. Her failed marriage, her lovers (real and imaginary), her charity work, etc, are frequent subjects for the media, and you'd think there was nothing left to say.
Well, as we know, we got that wrong. Last night, ITV screened the first of two programmes: "The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess". Channels Four and Five have presented two programmes on the same subject: "Diana: the Truth behind the Interview" and "Diana: the Interview That Shocked the World". As if you didn't know, these programmes focus on allegations that the BBC journalist, Martin Bashir, tricked Diana into her famous interview by presenting her brother, Earl Spencer, with forged documents. The BBC themselves comment:
"Former BBC chairman Michael Grade has said allegations that Martin Bashir used forged bank statements to convince Princess Diana to do a 1995 interview were "a very, very serious matter"
Well, perhaps they are, and perhaps Martin Bashir does need to answer the charges against him when he returns to fitness. However, I have reservations about this matter which I will save for later.
It's difficult to explain why Diana became so celebrated in her lifetime. We are told that it is largely because of her kindness, her beauty and her charity work. All might be true, but was she very different from many other personalities in doing good works? The late Christopher Hitchens made a documentary debunking the Diana myths in 1998. Yvonne Roberts wrote in the Independent, again, a year after Diana's death:
"I am sure Diana brought comfort to many. Her fame may even have expedited an end to the use of landmines. She may have encouraged some people to rethink on Aids and leprosy. The Diana nurses helping terminally ill children will prove invaluable. But, ultimately, what is truly significant about the past year is not what she appeared to ignite but how little has since been sustained. A saint, she ain't; a revolutionary - feminist of otherwise - she wasn't."
Historians will find much to comment upon when investigating the widespread mourning that accompanied Diana's funeral. It engulfed us at the time, and is now generally regarded as an outbreak of mass hysteria. People spent huge amounts of money on flowers to be strewn in the path of Diana's funeral cortege. Tens of thousands of mourners lined the procession route, many weeping uncontrollably and clutching teddy bears. I watched the event with a sort of fascinated disbelief. It was not an edifying spectacle. Another factor that was not edifying was something I learned from a supermarket worker back in my home town of Southport: the fact that sales of alcohol increased dramatically on the day before the funeral. I suspect that for many people in Southport and the rest of the UK, the whole TV event was a sort of entertainment - a "cryathon" fuelled by booze.
Not everybody appreciated this maudlin TV spectacular (41% of UK households didn't watch) - but here, the mourning took on an ugly aspect. Voices of dissent were not tolerated. As one comedian remarked soon afterwards : "It was Disney meets the Blackshirts". There were cases of shops being intimidated into closing on the day of the funeral and hostility towards unenthusiastic journals. A prime example of this was the treatment of Private Eye magazine. As Peyvand Khorsandi wrote in The Independent in 2017:
"t was these newspapers (i.e. the tabloid papers), and the ballooning sense of national mourning they were whipping up, that Private Eye punctured with its issue of 8 September 1997.There was outrage – it was withdrawn by three big retail chains, including WH Smith. Why? Because the target of its satirical wit was not the papers so much as the public."
You're right - that is a red herring, which is what I believe this whole Bashir and Diana "scoop" to be. Bashir was investigated by the BBC and cleared of fraud charges back in the 90s. What interests me is the fact that it has taken 25 years for this so-called scoop to be uncovered. Without getting bogged down in the details of the controversy, I believe that this matter will work out very well for the present government, even though they are not yet involved. Not yet. As a simple distraction, it takes some of the heat off them for their failings in other areas. The calamity of Brexit approaches (ask John Major) and any diversion will do.
I fear the Right gaining predominance in our media has already happened. Remember a bloke called Corbyn......?
ReplyDeleteI was entirely unimpressed by the mass hysteria that accompanied the death of Diana and watched the weeping crowds on TV with incredulity. Whenever I was openly sceptical, I was rebuked quite sharply with demands how I could be so callous. I pointed out I wasn't being callous: while I hadn't wished her dead, I simply couldn't become emotional about the death of a rich, privileged woman whom I had never met any more than I could about the death of anyone else whom I similarly did not know.
ReplyDeleteThe attempt to enforce 'respect' was both self-righteous and really quite oppressive. I remember reading about a middle class woman rebuking a stallholder at Ormskirk market for being open on the day of the funeral. She dismissed his explanation that it was his livelihood and he couldn't afford to lose a day's trade. A manager at work with whom I was friendly told me that her father had died at around the same time and that she felt that her genuine, personal grief had been swept away from her by the tsunami of effusive self-indulgence that had surrounded her on all sides.
I agree completely that there is almost certainly an anti-BBC agenda about the timing of these 'revelations' a quarter of a century after the event, but if you disliked the public display of ostentatious lachrymosity, just bear in mind we may well go through it all again when our 94-year old sovereign passes away.