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.

Although I agree with a lot of the comments on here, at the end of the day Diana don’t have to give the interview and has to some extent got to take responsibility. I do feel for Prince William though.

The BBC is it still government owned?

Ricki's broadly correct; it actually has a Royal Charter to act as a public service broadcaster, and is supposed to act independently under the oversight of its board

Trouble is it's funded by public subscription (the Licence Fee) which is effectively controlled by the government of the day ... hence "He who pays the piper" and all that ...

No @Interestedparty132. Just because someone is attention seeking, a bit in love with themselves and rich, doesn't mean anyone can stir between him and his sister. And lie about him to the point it breaks up a family.

Just because they're rich, or multimillionaires doesn't mean we treat them worse that anyone else. We leave them alone.

Makes me wonder how Bashir handled Michael Jackson and other interviews.

I've hated Bashir ever since the MJ interview-and I know most peoples feelings on here regarding MJ but he really did a number on him-according to his then manager he was absolutely devastated by it and after the interview the drugs that were previously a crutch became a necessity. He complained to the broadcasting standards commission accusing Bashir of yellow journalism. Apparently he only landed the MJ interview after promising him they would plan a trip to Africa to visit children with AIDS accompanied by Kofi Annan. When this was put to Bashir while under oath in court in California he refused to answer.

William seemed to be saying that she wouldn’t have said those things if she hadn’t been wound up.

I think so too.
I also think the whole family - royal and Spencers, and the courtiers have to share the blame too.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

The BBC is it still government owned?

Ricki's broadly correct; it actually has a Royal Charter to act as a public service broadcaster, and is supposed to act independently under the oversight of its board

Trouble is it's funded by public subscription (the Licence Fee) which is effectively controlled by the government of the day ... hence "He who pays the piper" and all that ...

Thanks! I knew I was blindly griping in the right postcode.

@RickiTarr

I don't think it does tbh. People are still looking to blame for her death but the reality is she got into a car with a drunk driver that crashed. That is all.

So what do you think normally protects the royal family from being at the mercy of other peoples’ drunk chauffeurs and shoddy security arrangements?

Well personally, I know myself I shouldn't get in a car with a drunk that will be driving. Do you know that? I'm pretty sure everyone knows that. So anyone in the royal family will know it. She didn't need a hero to stop her, she could have used her brain and said "no I'm not going in a car being driven by a drunk". Literally no one would blame her for that! Fayed is super rich, it would have been so easy to get a new driver..

Groping not griping.

In whose best interests was that interview???

As a PP notes, the viewing public who, as I recall, lapped it up. And Diana’s, of course. All this disingenuous ‘crowded marriage’ stuff. She wanted to stick the knife into Charles publicly, and she did. They were as daft as each other.

We thought it was hers, because that's what she wanted.

Well yeah, it was what she wanted. That is why she did it. It is also why she did the tell all book.

And, before you get carried away with the imagined good qualities of her awful brother, didn’t he refuse her permission to live at Althorp after the divorce? And hasn’t he profited rather nicely from the Diana story? He’s still doing it now.

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

Personally I don't think the line between her interview and her death can be so directly drawn. There was zero chance of her trusting palace staff/hires post divorce and especially after she began external relationships - she had little privacy as it was, she'd have had less with the palace involved.

@Horehound nobody realised he was drunk until the autopsy. Not even the Fayed-employed bodyguards who were trying to protest the plan to leave the Ritz (but were over ruled). He was obviously an adept secret drinker.

at the end of the day Diana don’t have to give the interview and has to some extent got to take responsibility

I agree completely; as I've said before interviews rarely end well for the RF, be it Diana or anyone else, and I think she was unwise to do it

That said, it doesn't excuse Bashir's appalling actions nor the BBC's attempted cover up - the two issues, while linked, can also stand independently

[quote RickiTarr]@Horehound nobody realised he was drunk until the autopsy. Not even the Fayed-employed bodyguards who were trying to protest the plan to leave the Ritz (but were over ruled). He was obviously an adept secret drinker.[/quote]
Right, so why would her security have stopped her from getting in the car then if he wasn't obviously drunk/tipsy?

[quote RickiTarr]@Horehound nobody realised he was drunk until the autopsy. Not even the Fayed-employed bodyguards who were trying to protest the plan to leave the Ritz (but were over ruled). He was obviously an adept secret drinker.[/quote]
Right, so why would the royal protection officers have stopped her getting in the car with him then? If nobody could tell he was drunk? Seriously, some of the utter bilge on this thread. Although it's provided some quality entertainment.

Crosspost !

Right, so why would her security have stopped her from getting in the car then if he wasn't obviously drunk/tipsy?

For the same reason the Fayed-employed security guards were trying to persuade Dodi not to leave the Ritz in the middle of a crowd of paparazzi. It wasn’t safe to roar off with so many photographers on motorbikes around, especially when there was no real need to leave the hotel.

That said, it doesn't excuse Bashir's appalling actions nor the BBC's attempted cover up - the two issues, while linked, can also stand independently

I agree. I remember when the interview was broadcast Bashir and all the BBC bigwigs were gloating and crowing and congratulating themselves. It obviously never occurred to them their dishonest methods might one day be rumbled.

Right, so why would the royal protection officers have stopped her getting in the car with him then? If nobody could tell he was drunk? Seriously, some of the utter bilge on this thread. Although it's provided some quality entertainment.

They would have been driving her. Interesting you are entertained by the story. It makes me sick to my stomach.

The BBC smoothed over the Savile thing in the end. I wonder how this will unfold. If they were to be sued for damages, it would come out of the licence fee of course.

We could all pontificate on the reasons Diana was in Paris, why she got into a car with a drunk driver, why she didn’t have royal protection officers etc but to link all that with an interview she gave two years earlier (which massively enhanced her reputation and gained public sympathy for eternity) is a ridiculous leap.

Bashir and his team acted appallingly but to believe that indicates the entire BBC and its 22,000 staff rotten to the core and should lose the licence fee because of an unforgivable act by one of their journalists 25 years ago is laughable.

I completely understand William and Harry’s fury but if Diana hadn’t spoken to Bashir she’d have spoken to someone. She was clearly always going to do so. She wasn’t thick. She knew what the Linley consequences of her actions would be and I think she weighed that up and thought it was worth it. I think it was too.

Did nobody follow the Inquest into Diana’s death? Or this recent inquiry?

There are so many people posting who don’t seem to have read anything about the whole affair.

He was basically saying he wanted the whole interview almost “stricken from the historical record”.

I bet William would like it struck from the record. There’s been a bit too much bad royal PR lately, hasn’t there? What with Prince Andrew and Prince Harry both making a show of themselves in TV interviews, and the viewing public not being too keen on the reverent coverage of Prince Philip’s death. To say nothing of William’s own alleged extra-marital dabblings.

Here’s an opportunity: blame the rotten old journalists! Pretend that the royal family are above reproach, rather than a group of rather dim, spoiled, avaricious people who are terrified that we’ll get rid of them when QE2 pops her clogs.

I never saw that interview, nor Charles, not my cup of tea, I have picked up bits over the years and recall a few quotes.

On here often enough and in real life I have seen women in a very dark place because of the behaviour of their partners. Friends have told me that they went a bit mad at the time, why would Diana be any different.

Sorry but this is all a bit of some people just wanting to have an alternative ending to the story.
You could go all the way back to the engagement interview with Charles and Diana where Diana barely said two words except for a little dig. I comfortable body language. They clearly didn't want to get married.
It shouldn't have gone ahead...she'd still be alive

I think it's wrong to link it to her death. If the guy didn't crash, she'd be alive and yet the interview would still have happened. The interview didn't kill her. The drink driver/paparazzi chase did.

@PinkTonic

Right, so why would the royal protection officers have stopped her getting in the car with him then? If nobody could tell he was drunk? Seriously, some of the utter bilge on this thread. Although it's provided some quality entertainment.

They would have been driving her. Interesting you are entertained by the story. It makes me sick to my stomach.

I'm not entertained by the story. I'm entertained by your ludicrous reations to it. Martin Bashir seems to have breach journalistic ethics, but he is not to blame for Diana's death, clearly. He also has a brain tumour and other serious health problems at the moment. But some of the guff on here is laughable, especially the bit about Harry being mentally fragile and Charles Spencer being vulnerable. Not to mention those who feel sick and cheated because they thought the Panorama interview was genuine and not induced by lies. It happened 25 years ago. Time to move on.