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Thoughts on Prince William's speech?

550 replies

Aspiringmatriarch · 22/05/2021 12:12

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?

OP posts:
Nishky · 23/05/2021 08:17

@goldierocks thanks for posting those links about the Queen going to church alone.

Amazing what people post on her as an absolute fact.......

itsgettingwierd · 23/05/2021 08:26

Agree sunshine the worst bit was they had to walk behind the coffin not crying whilst 10's of thousands of people who didn't even know Diana wailed liked Banshees as if it was their own parent or child that was in there.

itsgettingwierd · 23/05/2021 08:29

@Blossomtoes

No other child has had to walk behind his mother’s coffin with orders of not to cry while millions of people watched Harry is in pain and lashing out and I don’t blame him

William had to do it too and has managed not throw his family under the bus. Yes, it was dreadful and traumatic but it was over 23 years ago. It’s getting a bit old now.

William has also publicly hated the press too. He's had therapy too.

But William has had a different upbringing - he's the future King. Harry was just the aside - the spare. He was also younger. And it did affect William. He's said as much himself.

AnnunciataZ · 23/05/2021 08:35

@NoIdontwanttoseeyourknob

All those positive words about Scotland are far more likely to have been said with an eye to shoring up the Union than to be any reflection of the truth.
I agree.
longwayoff · 23/05/2021 08:36

Great idea @StormzyinaTCup. Let's do that and allow the RF to revise history by removing the interview from BBC. Let's not stop there. Away with all the newspaper coverage of Diana; away with the assorted books about her and Charles. Away with all mention of royals. Away with history. Let's rehabilitate Henry VIII, a lovely man who treated his 6 wives with loving kindness, even the couple he was forced to have executed.

Roussette · 23/05/2021 08:42

He was apparently quite supportive of Diana too, which surprised me.

That's interesting because I read quite the opposite. On Prince Phillips

@goldierocks
Here you go. The Queen takes Andrew to chuch in support of him after Maitlis interview. And www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/prince-andrews-bizarre-first-words-17274399 [here]]
Now... whether it was the next day or not, it is obvious the Queen supports Andrew even after the Maitlis interview and it is my prerogative to find that somewhat objectionable.

And from another article...
Andrew told aides he was “happy” with his performance, and a friend of the royal said: “The Duke went to church with the Queen [on Sunday] and was heard telling her it’s all been a great success

And another article saying so... Here

Amazing what people post on her as an absolute fact.......

I assume you mean me Nishky?! Why not say so!
I don't make stuff up for dramatic effect I promise you. Although there is often a lot of that going on, on other threads. If I post something I do everything in my power to check it is correct. Now.... if it is reported wrongly, I have no control over that I'm afraid.

Babymeanswashing · 23/05/2021 08:44

But I don’t know rousette, he is her son. Not sure really. I can see both sides with that!

I think it’s very likely William and Harry had very different upbringings, despite being only two years apart. There’s a big difference between fifteen and twelve.

HeadNorth · 23/05/2021 08:46

Diana was treated appallingly by the RF, but I can see with Charles going to be king it is convenient to be able to turn all the blame onto the BCC, who also behaved appallingly. No one really comes out of this well - least of all the British public.

AnnunciataZ · 23/05/2021 08:46

Andrew told aides he was “happy” with his performance, and a friend of the royal said: “The Duke went to church with the Queen [on Sunday] and was heard telling her it’s all been a great success

If this report is true then the arrogance of the man is even more astounding.

smilesy · 23/05/2021 08:49

Does William have the authority to stop the programme being shown again though? I can quite understand that he doesn’t want it to be seen again from a personal level. The programme caused him immense distress at the time and finding out the circumstances of the making of it must have added to this. I think that he was, for once, speaking from his heart in that speech. I don’t think he wants to change history. He just wants an extremely painful part of his life to go away. I don’t know, of course, but this too is a possibility 🤷‍♀️

Comeinoutoftherain · 23/05/2021 08:49

William is on a tour of Scotland. It's his job to talk as positively as possible about his time in Scotland.

Given the report on the Diana/Bashir interview has just been made public, it's not surprising that his time at Balmoral after her death has been raised.

He's the obvious choice to try to strengthen the ties between Scotland and the royal family. He was at university in Scotland and met Catherine there.

His statement on Diana will have been edited/partially crafted by his PR team. It will have been carefully reviewed and amended several times until they thought this the best version.

Charles and William are starting to step forward as future king/Prince of Wales as the Queen is now 95.

It's been happening slowly for the last couple of years but it will accelerate now that Philip is dead.

So the statement is written from the future Prince of Wales, hence the more formal tone.

Roussette · 23/05/2021 08:52

If this report is true then the arrogance of the man is even more astounding

Yes, and there's a few sources saying this. He's always been arrogant beyond belief.

Even holding that interview thinking that would sort it is beyond comprehension. I remember watching it live and being completely gobsmacked.

Does William have the authority to stop the programme being shown again though?
Yes I wondered that. I really don't think history can be rewritten by deleting or banning certain interviews wiped away.

Maybe Andrew would like his deleted but it will follow him round forever.

Samcro · 23/05/2021 09:09

I imagine the RF would rather the interview was never shown again. but you can't re write history. People saw it, they remember it.
what next ban the crown or any other fictional drama?
will they ban the Morton book to?

AnnunciataZ · 23/05/2021 09:21

Martin Bashir gives his side of the story.

Regardless of what he did or didn't do, this quote stands out "One of the saddest things about all of this has been the way the content of what she said has almost been ignored.”

So it's now become "the BBC drove her to her death" when you could equally argue that it was Charles's actions, which she spoke of in the interview, that set it in train.

Roussette · 23/05/2021 09:28

So agree AnnunciataZ

Bashir did some very wrong things but it is more convenient to hang him out to dry than have Charles playing a part in this.
Faking documents is appalling but he owned up to this 20 years ago. The BBC were remiss in glossing over that at the time.

In my opinion, this appears nothing more than a cynical ploy to bury that old Panorama interview and Charles’ misdeeds in time for him to be King

Crackoflightning · 23/05/2021 09:43

I wonder what Chelsea thought. Did he seem this damaged and this miserable to her

I think that there was an inkling of this from Cressida. Didn't she publicly mention that he was like this? Must say, I don't envy Meghan one bit. Or, Harry, for that matter. They've got a long road ahead.

smilesy · 23/05/2021 09:51

I think it’s a big ask for the highlighting of one programme and its dubious origins to be able to change history and people’s perception of what happened to Diana. What she said has been well documented, so it is unlikely to go away. Charles is still a divorcee who has remarried and will have to deal with the public’s perception of that, whatever it is, when he comes to be king. The more I read about why he and Diana married I. The first place, the more I realise that it was based on a combination of bowing to pressures and misunderstandings. It was doomed to failure. Charles was completely out of his depth with Diana and had no idea how to deal with her emotionally.

NoIdontwanttoseeyourknob · 23/05/2021 09:56

@Comeinoutoftherain

William is on a tour of Scotland. It's his job to talk as positively as possible about his time in Scotland.

Given the report on the Diana/Bashir interview has just been made public, it's not surprising that his time at Balmoral after her death has been raised.

He's the obvious choice to try to strengthen the ties between Scotland and the royal family. He was at university in Scotland and met Catherine there.

His statement on Diana will have been edited/partially crafted by his PR team. It will have been carefully reviewed and amended several times until they thought this the best version.

Charles and William are starting to step forward as future king/Prince of Wales as the Queen is now 95.

It's been happening slowly for the last couple of years but it will accelerate now that Philip is dead.

So the statement is written from the future Prince of Wales, hence the more formal tone.

Yes, that’s my point but in a lot more words.
StormzyinaTCup · 23/05/2021 10:04

@longwayoff

Great idea *@StormzyinaTCup*. Let's do that and allow the RF to revise history by removing the interview from BBC. Let's not stop there. Away with all the newspaper coverage of Diana; away with the assorted books about her and Charles. Away with all mention of royals. Away with history. Let's rehabilitate Henry VIII, a lovely man who treated his 6 wives with loving kindness, even the couple he was forced to have executed.
That’s just being silly now.

It stays, it doesn’t stay I’m pretty meh about it and I’m not a royalist. If the princes decide they don’t want it shown again them so be it, I wouldn’t have it down as a conspiracy by the the RF to rewrite their history, it’s the age of the internet and social media so it’s all out there in some form or another for anyone to digest and replay when they feel the need (although quite why you would I have no idea).

bevelino · 23/05/2021 10:05

The next series of the Crown covers the period when the Bashir interview took place. I imagine the RF will not want any depiction of it being aired.

I think Diana would have told her story regardless as she had already told Andrew Morton everything for the biography he was writing.

Comeinoutoftherain · 23/05/2021 10:11

@NoIdontwanttoseeyourknob

😂 sorry, I've never been able to use 5 words when 50 will do!

ShamedBySiri · 23/05/2021 10:19

I imagine William is aware the interview can't be totally erased. There are chunks of it on YouTube though not the whole, and sound bites from it have been used in zillions of programmes. However I think it would be reasonable for the BBC to be banned from using it or parts of it in future programming and (assuming BBC has copyright) from making it available or parts of it for sound bites in future productions by other companies and of course also from making more money from it.

JanetheObscure · 23/05/2021 10:25

It couldn't be more understandable that William would rather the Panorama interview was expunged from the record.

But he has so obviously minimised the other factors at play in the breakdown of Diana's marriage (and her overall state of mind); many of them royal family-related. He has also ignored Lord Dyson's statement, on page one of his report, that Diana would always have done an interview anyway.

ShamedBySiri · 23/05/2021 10:26

I assume (happy to be corrected as I don't know for sure) that the next Netflix offerings which are reputed to be from Diana's own tapes are from those tapes she made with her voice coach? Or are they from the Andrew Morton tapes?

It must be a lasting source of pain and rage that those voice coach tapes got into the public sphere. The law is a strange beast. Diana had possession of the tapes so it is reasonable to think they were hers. Burrell took them "to keep them safe". The police confiscated them. Earl Spencer went to court to retrieve them (the princes being too young to do it themselves and I don't think anyone else in the RF could have claimed ownership) and the court decided they belonged to Peter Settelen the voice coach who promptly hawked them around for sale. Appalling decision imo.

So I don't begrudge William grasping back one bit of control.

Taketheredpill · 23/05/2021 10:42

@NoIdontwanttoseeyourknob

All those positive words about Scotland are far more likely to have been said with an eye to shoring up the Union than to be any reflection of the truth.
Correct
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