Trashing the Princess

According to the Daily Mail Tina Brown is bringing out a trashy tell-all book about Princess Diana which was apparently produced with the cooperation of a large number of knowledgeable insiders. Here are some of the highlights:

Now, however, just four months before the tenth anniversary of Diana's death, Tina Brown has revisited the marriage in a new book, The Diana Chronicles, which presents a more balanced but, if anything, even bleaker portrait of the marriage and its main players.

While her 1985 article blamed Diana's "boring" and neglectful husband for her slow transformation from mouse into international star, the new publication depicts her as a "spiteful, manipulative, media-savvy neurotic" preying on Charles and then a series of other rich men for their status and wealth.

Brown claims to have interviewed more than 250 insiders, some of whom have never spoken publicly about Diana before.

They range from Tony Blair - whose role in orchestrating the Princess's funeral was recently depicted in the film The Queen - to Dr James Colthurst, the bicycling son of a baronet who has broken a 15-year silence about his secret role in passing on Diana's taped reminiscences to Morton.

The book, to be serialised in Vanity Fair later this week, makes a series of startling allegations:

lDiana ruthlessly pursued Charles because of his position. Her mother Frances Shand Kydd tried to talk her out of the marriage. When she demanded to know whether she loved the Prince or loved "what he is", Diana retorted: "What's the difference?"

Camilla, until now seen as Charles's true love, was also interested in him only because he was the heir to the throne.

She was infatuated with her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, whom she pursued relentlessly for six years. Camilla eventually began her adulterous affair in retaliation for Andrew's infidelity.

Diana had two "assignations" with Charles on the Royal train before their marriage, then co-operated with denials by the Palace to preserve her image of virginity.

Diana falsely convinced herself during their honeymoon that Charles had resumed his affair with Camilla. Brown maintains the Prince was faithful until his wife's eating disorders and "loony" tantrums drove him back to Camilla.

Diana's claim that she tried to commit suicide while pregnant with William was a sympathy-seeking lie.

Diana had no intention of marrying Dodi Fayed, whom she romanced purely to infuriate the Palace. Instead, she was plotting to land a far richer man, American financier Teddy Forstmann, as her next husband.

Charles, for all his bitterness over Diana, was still a little in love with her in her final years. In the hours after the Paris crash, he clung to the hope that she would survive, pledging to bring her home and care for her.

The reason that any of this matters to me at all is that Diana, late in her life and for entirely selfish reasons, attached herself to certain loony left causes like the crusade against land mines which have the potential to do little good and much harm (See the novel Yellow Eyes for details). Perhaps a bit of reality injected into the late Princess' life story will help to make her name a bit less "one to conjure with".