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As Donald Trump threatens to sue the BBC over how his speech was edited by “Panorama”, journalist Andy Webb has “chucked a load of petrol on the bonfire” with his “extraordinary” new book, said Lucy Denyer in The Telegraph.
“Dianarama: the Betrayal of Princess Diana” examines the “explosive” interview between Martin Bashir and Diana in 1995, broadcast by the BBC and watched by 23 million people in the UK. Because of Bashir’s actions and, “more importantly”, because of the ensuing cover-up, “Diana’s life had been sent off on a terribly dangerous course, resulting in her death”, claims Webb.
This is “punchy stuff”. At the start, it’s “tempting” to “suspect Webb of amplifying the incident” – but as his “meticulously researched and carefully crafted book unfolds”, it becomes clear that Bashir’s “Panorama” interview with Diana “carried more weighty implications” than were first apparent.
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It’s clear Webb has an “endearing soft spot for Diana”, and holds no grudge against King Charles. “All his ire is instead directed at two targets: Bashir and the BBC.” The first part of the book tackles how Bashir “lied, faked and forged” his path to the interview, while the second shines a light on how the corporation sought to “cover its back” after the story broke.
Webb offers some “fascinating nuggets”. Diana’s famous “there were three of us in this marriage” line, for example, actually referred not to Camilla Parker-Bowles but to the nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke, “with whom Bashir had convinced Diana that Charles was having an affair”.
“Dianarama” charts Webb’s “decades-long campaign to uncover the truth”, said Kate Mansey in The Times. Among his claims is the “extraordinary scale of Bashir’s lies”, including “astonishing allegations” that “Prince Edward had Aids”, her son Prince William was recording her with a “special watch”, and the Queen would “abdicate within six months”.
Other striking revelations include a memo that Diana asked her lawyer, Lord Mishcon, to record days before the “Panorama” interview, in which she said she “believed she would be hurt, possibly in a staged car crash”, and a collection of “mysterious” BBC documents that allegedly “went missing”.
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Webb also explores claims of a “cover-up within a cover-up”: he speaks to Richard Eyre, a BBC governor at the time of the initial investigation who tells him the board “‘would have insisted on a full-scale inquiry’ had they not been kept in the dark about Bashir’s deceit”.
“Some readers might look at ‘Dianarama’, shrug and think it old history,” said Denyer in The Telegraph. But Webb reminds us it is a story that “will not go away”. He has “reopened a writhing can of worms”.
Irenie Forshaw is the features editor at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.
