Like everyone else, I was shocked and tremendously saddened when I heard the terrible news of the death of Princess Diana. I admired the way in which she had not only raised money for various charities, but actually gone - sometimes completely alone - to visit the hospital wards and comfort the sick and the dying. The response of the British public, most of whom are sick to death of The Royal Family with their out of date attitudes, was incredible.
As you have probably seen on your television channels - over a million people attended the funeral, and millions of flowers were strewn at the gates of Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace by weeping mourners. Unfortunately, along with this outpouring of grief there was also an outpouring of sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy.
For me, any sense of shock wore off when I reflected that having moved into the seedy, James Bond world of the Fayed family it was not so surprising that Princess Diana should meet her end in an armour-plated car driven at more than 100 miles per hour by a drunken security man without a proper licence. According to an American Auto-Accident Expert, the driver was probably being urged to drive faster by the speed-mad playboy Dodi Fayed who was sitting in the back seat with poor unprotected Diana.
Surmounting any possible feelings of grief were a number of overpowering emotions - disgust at the way the media, by its mawkish coverage, deliberately fomented a mood of spurious compassion and a alarm. Such was the general air of unreality surrounding the occasion that it was not so surprising that no one liked to point out that those supposedly unfeeling and murderous paparazzi were engaged in a rather more significant job than intruding on the privacy of two happy lovers holding hands across the table in a luxury Paris hotel.
The story was not merely sensational; it had important implications for everyone. Here was Diana, Princess of Wales, mother of the future King of England, conducting a public affair, with the son of Mohamed al-Fayed, the man at the centre of the recent cash-for-questions scandal; a man once accused of trying to blackmail the British Prime Minister; a man who, in the words of a lengthy government report, was quite incapable of telling the truth. Quite simply - Diana had got herself into bad company! But we have a saying that 'The heart rules the head!' Who are we anyway to try to dictate who she should or should not fall in love with? One thing is for sure in all this - the Queen, and her perfidious consort The Duke of Edinburgh were shown up to be what they really are - a couple of uncaring, unfeeling, remote, out of date museum pieces - from the long gone, dead old days of The British Empire.
As for Prince Charles - I will not even lower myself to make any comment! Like the vast majority of Britons, I would like to see our monarchy retained - but on a much more open model - based perhaps on the successful Scandinavian example. Charles has lost the respect of the British people. Perhaps we should have a Regent to take over from the Queen until Prince William is old enough to take on the Kingship? Many commentators say that the Diana episode and the public response reflects a deeper sea-change in the British psyche, and points to a shift of attitude towards society and the world in general.
Are the British people becoming more willing to show their emotions? Are we becoming less arrogant, less insular? Perhaps!!
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