BBC Martin Bashir - Diana shocked.

[justasking111]

The more that comes out about the panorama interview and the way things were invented/forged. Bank statements, telephone records, stories about the family to encourage Diana to talk to Bashir. I just cannot believe what is emerging from this, things that would have influenced me if I had been Diana and no-one verified it independently.

I'm not American.

There's pages calling Harry far worse names than piece of shit. No one on Mumsnet thinks it's awful, sickening, disgraceful to call someone who lost their mum a piece of shit if their name happens to be Harry.

Harry slagged off his dad. William slagged off his mum. Charles slagged off his parents and has whinged plenty of the years about how rough his SUPER privileged childhood was. Both Charles and Diana ran to the press to wash their dirty laundry in public with no thought to how much they were hurting their children. And now William's helping Charles contribute to the decades-long campaign to gaslight and paint Diana as an unstable liar, while Harry continues the pattern of whining about his poor childhood.

They all need to stfu.

@derxa

PW's alleged affair I wonder why you want this to be true. Is it in the public interest to know if it is true. Are you a friend of Catherine and want it to come out?

I remember I was in the 6th form at school and one of my peers said that Charles' affair was nonsense and that the press did the same thing to the Queen and Prince Philip in their day.

I wasn't sure how she knew that, but about two weeks later the tapes were revealed. (I'm showing my age here).

I don't know if it is true or not, and just like then I don't care if it's true, but I do wonder why anyone wants to assert something is the truth (without facts) and why anyone would argue the other way (without facts). I would never vouch for anyone, much less people I don't know.

@WisconsinRaw

I'm not American.

There's pages calling Harry far worse names than piece of shit. No one on Mumsnet thinks it's awful, sickening, disgraceful to call someone who lost their mum a piece of shit if their name happens to be Harry.

Harry slagged off his dad. William slagged off his mum. Charles slagged off his parents and has whinged plenty of the years about how rough his SUPER privileged childhood was. Both Charles and Diana ran to the press to wash their dirty laundry in public with no thought to how much they were hurting their children. And now William's helping Charles contribute to the decades-long campaign to gaslight and paint Diana as an unstable liar, while Harry continues the pattern of whining about his poor childhood.

They all need to stfu.

Damn it! You put everything in my head on the page.
You're good!

@WisconsinRaw

I'm not American.

There's pages calling Harry far worse names than piece of shit. No one on Mumsnet thinks it's awful, sickening, disgraceful to call someone who lost their mum a piece of shit if their name happens to be Harry.

Harry slagged off his dad. William slagged off his mum. Charles slagged off his parents and has whinged plenty of the years about how rough his SUPER privileged childhood was. Both Charles and Diana ran to the press to wash their dirty laundry in public with no thought to how much they were hurting their children. And now William's helping Charles contribute to the decades-long campaign to gaslight and paint Diana as an unstable liar, while Harry continues the pattern of whining about his poor childhood.

They all need to stfu.

Mic drop 😂

In my opinion anything that discredited Diana would have been welcome in the RF at that time.

Certainly it seemed Charles wanted Camilla in the picture, evidenced later by all the brainwashing articles to try to raise her profile and make he acceptable to the rest of us.

See I really don't think William is smearing his mum and saying she lied.

I think he blames the interview in escalating a hostility between his parents.
Maybe from his perspective the separation had been relatively amicable but after Bashir came up with fake abortions, staff paid off behind her back, watches being bugged etc Diana became paranoid and thought they were out to get her.
The interview became her revenge.

Also without the accusations of Charles sleeping with the nanny she might have still done the interview but would she have disclosed as much, in the way she did? Would she have criticized the RF if she felt she could trust at least some of them? We just don't know

I think we do, given the Morton book that preceded the interview.

Agree they all should STFU though.

Then suddenly she had an unfortunate (some CTs might say not unexpected) accident.

Which she could have walked away from by the simple expedient of wearing a seatbelt. If she genuinely believed she was in danger, it's extraordinary that she didn't take the simplest of precautions.

The BBC behaved far worse than the Sun ever could. They faked and faked and faked documents and allegations for months and months to trick Diana into talking.

The Sun's phone hacking scandal has nothing on BBC behaviour - that's about revealing the truth celebs don't want you to hear, not creating systematic forgeries and false narratives to frighten and deceive a lone woman.

For me one of the most surprising aspects is just how outrageous some of Bashir's lies/smears were. Obviously I'm not coming from a position of being extremely anxious/neurotic and not knowing who to trust. But the Tiggy thing was highly unlikely due to Charles being wrapped up with Camilla. Prince William spying on her? The Queen a comfort eater??? Edward with AIDS??

Supposedly Earl Spencer realised all or most of it was highly unlikely and Bashir not to be trusted and he warned Diana off.

It's hard to imagine where she was in her mind that she swallowed all that hook line and sinker. It wasn't exactly subtle.

I think Earl Spencer could have been more proactive in warning Bashir to clear off and stay well away from his sister. With all those detailed notes? Personally I'd have reported him to his superiors for outrageous libel.

That would have knocked the whole thing in the head.

Also, no doubt I missed it, but given he was shown faked bank statements to show his head of security was taking payments for information did he sack his head of security (or whatever that person's role was, I haven't checked)? Were there any consequences for that person does anyone know?

@longwayoff

Help me to recall please, RF enthusiasts. That tape of Squidgy Diana's phone call talking with James Gilbey. The tape that just happened to be recorded completely unintentionally by an old boy in a garden shed and had nothing at all to do with the security services and routine monitoring of the RF. That was the fault of the BBC was it? And Charles with his tampax tape? That too? No doubt we will all have the pleasure of seeing Paul Burrell wheeled out on tv today to give his opinion on his ex-employer. Just noticed the D Mail is leading on Prince Harry's hard life with added drink and drugs for extra salacious tingles. And everything is someone else's fault. The amount of guff people will swallow is astonishing.

It doesn’t make sense that the police or security swrvices would be directed to dig up material to discredit both Charles and Diana. My understanding of the Squidgygate and Tampongate tapes was that the Red Tops were using scanners for hacking (and taping and rebroadcasting for amateur radio hams to hear and record) private mobile phone calls, before being foiled in that and later moving on to the voicemail hacking that eventually led to such a scandal.

The behaviour of the BBC in this is utterly disgusting and beyond contempt. It goes without saying that they are entirely wrong. However, I’m a bit concerned about the number of people pointing out that had she not let her security go she wouldn’t have been in the car crash etc. Diana died aged 36 and a mother of two children. This is more than old enough to be well aware that getting in a car with a drunk driver and no seatbelt was a terrible idea that could easily result in death. Not all personal responsibility can be absolved by the terrible actions of others.

@knittingaddict

I heard about this many months ago on a US podcast. I'm surprised that it's taken so long to become general knowledge.

It’s just that the report is out so the findings are now official.

I feel like a lot of the reporting around this denies Diana any agency in the choices and decisions she made. She was 35 years old and Earl Spencer seemed perfectly able to see though Bashir.

Just answered my own question: from an article in the Telegraph

"Bashir told the Earl that he was a “target of the tabloids” and that members of his household, including his former head of security Alan Waller, had been “selling private information about him to the media”. It was a lie."

Former head of security, which makes sense as it would be unlikely there would be any consequences for the person or opportunity for the Earl to seek corroboration.

This is more than old enough to be well aware that getting in a car with a drunk driver and no seatbelt was a terrible idea that could easily result in death.

Whilst Diana could have chosen to put on a seat belt, I think it is very unreasonable to blame her for getting in a car with a drunk driver. How could she have known? Dodi and Al Fayed came up with the plan for a decoy car and called the driver back on duty and they wouldn't have known he had been drinking either. Diana had every reason to trust that she was in safe hands with an experienced driver.

I find the witch hunt of Martin Bashir pretty distasteful. Diana was a grown woman who made choices

I agree completely about Diana making choices, but I'm not sure how that makes it a "witch hunt" against Bashir?
As a prominent member of a publicly funded institution which (amusingly) claims journalistic integrity he behaved like a sewer rat, and the point that other journalists do exactly the same doesn't make it any better

Nor do we know how "ill and unable to defend himself" he really is, since medical records are rightly private, but it would hardly be surprising if someone who's so blatantly lied already went on to lie about something else

Fascinating, though, that some buy the story about Bashir leaving the BBC in the last days before publication to "concentrate on his health" ... I wonder if they believe the earth's flat too?

No sympathy for Bashir, he destroyed Michael Jackson, attempted to destroy Sarah Palin. He was a scandal rag merchant who rode on the wings of the Diana interview.

He also needs to make up his mind if he is ill with long covid, a heart condition or a brain tumour!!

@TheUndoingProject

I feel like a lot of the reporting around this denies Diana any agency in the choices and decisions she made. She was 35 years old and Earl Spencer seemed perfectly able to see though Bashir.

TBF, she had no qualifications, despite two attempts at her O levels, and he had an Oxford degree, so you’d expect a gap in reasoning ability. On top of which, she had psychological problems and was under immense pressure. She was vulnerable and probably not very skilled at logical reasoning.

There are lots of people like that on earth, but not many of them in high profile positions like she was. Good advice and a stalwart staff are essential in her position.

She had agency, but she desperately needed good advice. Bashir persuaded her to do Panorama behind the backs of all of her advisers, by telling her they couldn’t be trusted.

@ShamedBySiri I suppose it depends on the person, but a quick google shows that the driver had a blood alcohol level consistent with having drunk somewhere around ten glasses of wine. I think most people would be able to spot that level of alcohol consumption in a person.

Well why didn't Dodi? He was the one dealing with the chauffeur.

While she wasn’t academically intelligent, Diana was well known for her ability to read and manipulate others. I think she’s a prime example of someone who has become sanctified in death - while she was clearly a good Mum and loved her children, she was also very keen to blame other people for her problems and it’s well documented that she used the press to her own ends when it suited her. I think the BBC and Bashir have acted horribly but it doesn’t mean Diana should be devoid of any personal agency because she didn’t have her O-Levels.

@ShamedBySiri every person who got in that car with a drunk driver made their choice. Dodo bears responsibility for his decisions, just as Diana does for hers. As we all do as functioning adults,
IMO.

Dodi! Autocorrect

[quote Nowhereelsetogo90]@ShamedBySiri I suppose it depends on the person, but a quick google shows that the driver had a blood alcohol level consistent with having drunk somewhere around ten glasses of wine. I think most people would be able to spot that level of alcohol consumption in a person.[/quote]
Not necessarily alcoholics can be high functioning. My friend married a man who eight weeks later was in hospital dying of liver failure. He never appeared drunk when we saw them no-one else had a clue either including his bride.