Thoughts on Prince William's speech?

[Aspiringmatriarch]

I've been musing on this, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the Bashir interview created a 'false narrative'. Obviously Diana was lied to, which is appalling, and I'm sure that fueled some of her paranoia but isn't it true that she was spied on at times e.g. with the squidgygate tapes? And she'd already collaborated with Andrew Morton saying many of the same things, and apparently wanted to do an interview after Charles gave his.

I don't know... it just feels odd to me that William is essentially asking for it to be struck from the record. He was apparently angry with her after the Bashir interview and was teased about it at school, which must have been horrible. Is he trying to protect her memory or is there an element of trying to tidy it all away?

I think she would have done an interview with someone. she must have really wanted her story out there.
I think the RF just want people to forget that PC has an affair and married the OW.
getting ready for him being King.

It's surprising that William would go along with that narrative if so. I'm sure he's made his peace with Charles and Camilla but he must know how much pain it caused Diana. Anyway, those were her words and she apparently wanted to say what she said. Criticise Bashir and the BBC by all means, but I don't think it's his place to say the whole thing was a false narrative.

It’s hard to say. Diana probably feels slightly unreal to W at this point.

I don't think it's a false narrative, and I think she would have done an interview anyway. But I suppose she might have edited what she said a little more. Who knows?

Not a false narrative though by any means.

Yeh, I can see why he's angry but she had been wronged and she was dying to tell somebody.

I think he’s unreasonable to accuse the BBC of making his parents’ relationship worse: they seemed to do that pretty effectively by themselves... It was a selfish failure of Diana as a mother to do a personal interview that was bound to affect her sons. Also a failure of those around her, eg her brother, not to have advised strongly against it and pointed out the inevitable damage to her children.

I'm sure he's made his peace with Charles and Camilla

I'm not too sure about that. He seems to love his dad (as children do even if they have crap parents) and Camilla was foisted on him so he's had no choice but to put on a front in public.

However, it's been said that Charles doesn't see much of his grandchildren.

God, imagine when Harry decides to spill the beans on Camilla!

Yes obviously BBC/ Bashir we're wrong to use those means but Charles did his interview a year before and she had also given the tapes to JM. Apparently she had approached Max Hastings who refused so she would have found someone else. She was determined that her side was heard. PW said it contributed to the breakdown of their relationship- well even if Diana did not want a divorce - Charles had told the world that his relationship with Camilla rekindled when his marriage had irretrievably broken down and that was long before the Bashir interview. It's easy to blame others but William needs to grow up and accept that his father was the one who did not want the marriage and he as children often are was caught in the middle.

I think the RF just want people to forget that PC has an affair and married the OW. getting ready for him being King

I so agree with this. Spot on.
Look at the massive PR exercise to get Camilla accepted. This was stirred up a hornets nest that the RF really don't want.

I don't totally agree that it was selfish of Diana to do the interview. Yes of course it had huge repercussions but at that point she was paranoid. And paranoia is an awful thing, she was fed untrue stuff that just fuelled her paranoia and she wanted to get her story out there.

Agreed Charles was no Saint and should not have embarked on his affair with Camiila a few years after Harry's birth, but Diana also admitted to a five year affair which doesn't paint her in the best light either. Bashir was very wrong to have faked evidence to add to Diana's paranoia and he should answer for that as should the BBC for not investigating it properly. I can understand William wanting to address it which he now has but I do wish that Harry would stop trying to rubbish his entire family. I feel sorry for him but you would think no other child has lost a parent in tragic circumstances by the way he carries on.

It didn't create a false narrative.

It created a narrative that took a tangent from the truth and used parts of facts to fit a bias narrative.

It's what the RF comms/media team do too.

However I have the utmost sympathy for Princes William and Harry who not only had their parents horrendous marriage paraded in public and their affairs etc - they also lost their mum at a very influential age and had to follow her coffin through the streets of London whilst strangers mourned their loss.

Both those boys must have horrendous MH issues and both are tackling those in differing ways. I feel for PW though as as future King he has to be far more restrained and keep far more repressed and keep far more of a facade up with his relationship with his father.

However as much as everyone skates PH for all he's doing publicly PW is starting to follow suit - and I blame neither of them.

As much as people argue they have privilege due to their wealth I wouldn't want any of the "privilege" they've allegedly been afforded

She would have done an interview anyway for sure. I think the issue is she would have edited herself more and maybe thought about how her children would be affected. However she was shown shocking (false evidence) that made her not think straight and therefore alter her own 'truth' accordingly. Much like we are seeing bad therapy having an affect on Haz. If you have toxic elements pretending to support or advise you. You don't think straight at all. It blurs your reality a lot.

Her paranoia was fed by the interview and caused her to let go of some of the staff she could have benefited from. And royal protection officers.

Have people really forgotten Camilla is the villain I don't think she has ever stopped being that. People are just very polite about it these days. That and it is very obvious who Charles has always loved and still does. Considering Haz is saying his father is trapped etc. Why should anyone not want the man to have some happiness.

@oneglassandpuzzled

Her paranoia was fed by the interview and caused her to let go of some of the staff she could have benefited from. And royal protection officers.

You are so right about the protection officers. They were quite vocal after she died about how they could have prevented the death.

Probably part of Will's anger is to do with this. If her trust had not been destroyed like that she may still be alive.

@oneglassandpuzzled

Her paranoia was fed by the interview and caused her to let go of some of the staff she could have benefited from. And royal protection officers.

Yes, this. It was using inadequate, poorly trained protection and a drunk chauffeur that cost her life. That is a fact.

Diana had form for giving her protection officers the slip to do her own thing years before she dismissed them formally.

Just sayin'

but isn't it true that she was spied on at times e.g. with the squidgygate tapes?

As was Prince Charles (and the tampon)

It certainly did airbrush the other mistress out of the picture completely, and I think that has had consequences for how PoW's second marriage is seen.

I think Prince William spoke well - hismityer may well have given an interview at some point. But being led to believe that some key people were taking money to betray confidential information is just horrible and, as he says, must have had an impact on so many aspects of her life.

And it probably was a factor in her decision to refuse official close protection (just more people to spy on her, and to have advance notice of her diary). And tragedy might have been averted if she had made a different decision

Probably part of Will's anger is to do with this. If her trust had not been destroyed like that she may still be alive

^ This.
I think she was actually told that the police/security officers were feeding back information and spying on her when it actually wasn't true.

If I was W or H I would be furious too. She was manipulated when her paranoia was manifesting itself.

I don't know... it just feels odd to me that William is essentially asking for it to be struck from the record God Almighty I wouldn't blame him.
I loved Diana and cheered her on in the interview. But I forgot about the impact on her sons.

This is all to do with The Firm and protecting the Firm.

The Firm is like the Mafia. They control the press and the government and expect total loyalty. Anyone is expendable and anyone on the inside is expected to toe the party lie at any cost.

William is the Firm's man, through and through. He obeys their orders and will never deviate from the party line.

Compare Harry and William's speeches. Harry's expressed anger at the press but was a beautiful loving statement towards his mother. William's statement was designed to gaslight his mother (describing her as "paranoid" TWICE within the space of about two minutes) and was quite literally a call for her own words to be censored. Whatever Bashir did, Diana's own written letter makes clear she was not manipulated into it and would have done the interview with someone else because she was desperate to get her story out.

From day one the Palace and the 'men in grey' tried to gaslight Diana and paint her as mentally unstable to cover up Charles. Whoever said upthread that his affair with Camilla only started 5 years after Harry was born, what rot. Charles and Camilla started seeing each other before he and Diana got engaged, the affair lasted throughout the engagement, and continued into the marriage. The palace gaslighted her to make her doubt her own thoughts and what she was seeing and hearing, then tried their hardest to smear her in the press as mentally unwell to destroy her credibility so no one would believe her when she tried to speak out about how she'd been treated.

It's the exact same tactics the Firm is using on Harry now.

Please don't forget, the Firm has serious money, employs some of the most shark-like PR firms and law firms in the world, and has an inappropriate level of control over the British media. We aren't talking about some nice little family going through private dramas.

For the past decade or more, the Firm has spent millions on the PR campaign to rehabilitate Charles and his relationship with Camilla. They have actively created a narrative of Charles and Camilla as star-crossed lovers cruelly prevented from marrying but finally together, and pushed the idea that all the Diana stuff would have been avoided if Charles had been allowed to marry Camilla in the first place. Which is nonsense. Camilla didn't want to marry Charles (she desperately wanted to marry Andew PB) and Camilla wasn't his only or even his main mistress. The idea that Charles and Camilla circa 1980 were desperately in love and cruelly prevented from marrying is pure PR narrative spin.

The Firm lash out whenever that narrative is threatened because the Firm exists to protect the Monarch and the Heir at all costs. It's why they launched an all-out media attack on the Crown for covering the Diana story and pretended it was because the Crown was fictionalising real life events and turning real people's lives into entertainment, obviously a lie because the Crown had already been doing that for five years without the Palace having any problem with it. It's why they're still trying to gaslight Diana now, and why William has been roped in and ordered to parrot the Firm party line about Diana being paranoid and manipulated.

All sheer PR.

Charles and Camilla behaved appallingly but they're now married and apparently happy. No one who lived through the Diana years can forget what C&C did.
All of the royal confessional interviews have been a disaster and should never have happened.

Whatever Bashir did, Diana's own written letter makes clear she was not manipulated into it That letter was dodgy to say the least.

@derxa

Charles and Camilla behaved appallingly but they're now married and apparently happy. No one who lived through the Diana years can forget what C&C did. All of the royal confessional interviews have been a disaster and should never have happened.

Indeed. Royal interviews never have a good outcome - never. The RF should have learned that by now. You do a deal with the British Press, you sup with the devil.

From Reuters Dyson's report found that Bashir, then a little-known reporter, had shown Spencer fake bank statements suggesting that Diana was being bugged by the security services and that two senior aides were being paid to provide information about her

That would make anyone in Diana's situation feel extremely anxious and paranoid about who to trust or not trust. I don't find it hard to accept that this had direct impact on her decision making from that moment onwards.

It was a despicable thing for Bashir to have done. His motivation was simply to secure the interview and to boost his profile immensely.