There's nothing in this verbal, blame the victim, vomit, to recommend it! Yes she was very young, so were the boys tragically robbed of a mother at a most vulnerable and formative age!

If the obsessive and highly judgemental, money grubbing, gossip columnists and paparazzi had just left her, a normal human female, with all the longings needs and dreams of a normal human female, trapped in loveless marriage, [and used like a breeding mare,] alone! She may well still be alive today?

This "gentleman" has quite a reputation as a writer of some highly contentious articles/historical revision. But this one and the highly misleading and inaccurate title, I believe, is well below his usual, gutter tripe standard!
Alan B.

Diana is less interesting than Donald Trump, who is at least alive and of more use than Dizzy Diana.

Im waiting for Binny to show us what sort of political journalist he is and write a piece on Imran Awan, and the biggest scanal in history, but maybe hes just not that good a political journalist.
Writing articcles like this for ratings instead seems like a cry for help.

That whole silly, embarrassing grief-by-media dead-Di frenzy may get some renewed traction 20 years on, but Babies Cambridge I and II are already taking over that space.

But who knows? Whatever the Western media chooses to get into a frenzied lather about, the Western readership dutifully abides.

There's money in it!!

She was a flash in the pan moment for either the romantics or the dreamers. Yes she was pretty,(naive). Yes she was a commoner, (common). All these bleeding hearts whaling on and on about her, she was just another dreamer with little or no maturity. Love? You have agreed to play a part in a very important role as a future Queen. Having agreed or committed to marrying a future King she knew the rules. I dare say throughout history these unions were loveless but sometimes love did grow between them. Our very own Tasmanian princess is a perfect point in case. She stands for a shining example of what is expected of the women who marry royalty. If Diana wanted love and romance well that was not in the terms of reference, so too bad, she lucked out. Don't get me wrong I reckon Charley's a fully fledged idiot for actually preferring that 'dog' of a thing over, lets face it, someone as pretty (I prefer pretty rather than beautiful because of her child-like demeanor),as Diana. Love? Who gives a crap about love when I think I'd be waking up next to her every morning. If she wanted love she should have declined the whole charade. As for her death. It is just one of the many conspiracy theories that simply won't go away, but, it has something to do with her marrying a Muslim and any children from their union would have meant that a Muslim could have become the King or Queen of England. Mummy was not going to let this happen, and so it goes.

Conspiracy theories aside, Diana died because the French were either too mean or too stupid to fit guard rails along the pillars in the tunnel (whatever).

Instead of the car sliding harmlessly along a rail it dug into a pillar; simple as that.

I remember watching on television as two bereft young boys
flanked by their visibly shocked father, grandfather,
and uncle, took the hardest steps of their life, honouring
their adored mother who lay in the coffin before them.
It was such a heartbreaking spectacle.

Look at the effect her death had on the usually reserved
British nation. Who can forget the ocean of flowers, the
crowds that came to pay homage. The wailing in the
streets. Forcing the British monarch
to fly the flag at half mast, and appear on television to
make a speech to show she did care. Who can forget the
speech her brother made in Westminster Abbey and the
thunderous applause that followed both outside and inside
the Abbey.

Princess Diana was an extraordinary luminous character.
She leaves an unfillable gap on the world stage. She was
brilliant at moving between two worlds and she did it so
well and with such panache. She had a tenderness that
was extra-ordinary. Hopefully, her children have inherited
some of her traits - and will turn out to be the caring,
normal, and
decent human beings that she tried to raise.

RIP Princess Diana - you are missed greatly.

Is Mise I'm curious, I hear what your saying. I wonder IF there was a conspiracy to end the union of these two, would their death not have happened in some other place or way?

Foxy, it seems you may be one of the romantics or dreamers I spoke of. I was not smitten or besotted or any other emotion over Diana. I simply saw a naive child who did not have a grasp on reality or the 'real' world. People can OOOOH and AAAAH as much as they like, she was not royal material and that's that. The way she carried on over her interaction with the Palace and the Queen were disgusting as only some whiny, whinging spoilt brat would carry on. She and she alone brought disgrace to the Palace. Charles for his part was an idiot we all agree but I give him some space because after all did not his great Uncle do the exact same thing with that American maggot? Anyway the main reason Diana was so popular, apart from her looks, was that she came across as a shy, sweet little two or three year old, and who doesn't love children of that age group?

Dear ALTRAV,

Princess Diana was a Spencer. A family of British nobility.
With Royal Ancestry. Her father was - John Spencer - Viscount
Althorp, 8th Earl of Spencer - She was Lady Diana Spencer. And
during her marriage Diana was Princess of Wales, Duchess
of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay and Countess of Chester.

There were many reasons for Princess Diana's popularity.
Apart from being a very caring and giving person she
developed an intense interest in serious illnesses and
health-related matters outside the purview of traditional
royal involvement, including AIDS, Leprosy, Cancer,
Mental Illness. She campaigned in the fight against
landmines, homeless youth, drug addiction and the rights of
the elderly. She was celebrated for her charity work.
She was involved with dozens of charities and raised millions
of pounds for them. She was the first royal to shake hands
and give hugs to AIDS patients - thereby dispelling many
myths surrounding the disease.

I could go on as I am obviously a great admirer of the late
Princess and have read the very interesting, and intensely
well researched (and an unputdownable read) by Tina Brown,
"The Diana Chronicles." But I don't want to bore you.

You wrote in quite unflattering terms about one of the
last century's most influential women - Wallis The Duchess
of Windsor. There's a fascinating book by Charles Higham
" Wallis: Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor," that
may give you a different perception of her.

Foxy, as you say 'you are obviously a great admirer of Diana'. Well I'm not! I spoke of her as a commoner and a child because that is how she presented. All these 'things' you say she has done are all part of the job. I am not disputing that because I do know her history and her 'work'. She chose, instead to 'cherry pick', like a small child and do the things she liked and reject the others. Well you can dream on like the rest of your elk but in the 'real' world she took on a job and all that goes with it, boring husband and all, and I and millions of on-lookers expected her to 'suck it up' and get on with it, not act like a love struck teenager. I and so many others I came across were totally dumbfounded as to her antics after leaving Charles. She singlehandedly destroyed what little 'cred' she had left and any self esteem with it. So you and the rest of her followers keep that candle burning by all means, but remember it's still only a candle.

Dear ALTRAV,

Princess Diana undertook all of her duties on
behalf of the Queen and represented Her Majesty at
functions overseas. She not only did what was expected
of her but the activities that I mentioned earlier
she
did as "extras" and gave of her time freely to them.
Hence the reason why there were so many people from her
charities at her funeral. She firmly believed that
marriage was for life and family was everything to her.
But of course this changed when she realised that there
were three people in her marriage right from the start.
Prince Charles was not about to give up the love of his
life - Camilla. It is he who must bear the brunt for
the failure of his marriage - after all if you regard
the Princess as a "child" then Prince Charles being
13 years older should have behaved as an adult - and a
future king. "Noblesse Oblige."

Foxy

If you must have your heroes, then fine. But why not also look at the socio-political issues surrounding her ignominious fame?

She was a child of a thousand-year-old aristocratic class whose fortunes were made on the spoils of war and the horrendous torture and persecution of more peasant revolts than I've had hot dinners. This got their bloodlines a sacred mention in a big fat book.

What's more, she was a blonde, sad-eyed archetype of a thousand fairytale princess stereotypes that indoctrinate young girls into believing that one day their prince will come and make them whole, socially accepted human beings instead of obscure damsels in waiting.

Yeah, she did nice stuff like campaigning against the landmines that her class inflicted on brown peasant people, that blew of their limbs off. But she also spent hundreds of thousands of pounds per year of taxpayer money on her clothes and grooming. She was very good at posing for photo shoots with an AIDS baby on her lap, with studied sympathy, but then retreated to her five-star hotel and happily went of to functions wearing multi-thousand pound dresses.

Her public aura was mostly media-driven. The main role of the media is to keep the peasants in awe of the rich and powerful in the guise of celebrity worship. More importantly, they play on our sympathies with endless tales of woe about celebrities' vulnerabilities and addictions.

Yes, of course, let's never forget that the classes that oppress us are people too.

Killarney, I am glad to see another who see's through the BS. You have articulated the situation much better and in more depth than I did. Good for you!