My Weekly Book

The Assassination of Princess Diana – Noel Botham

I found it appropriate that this book has a purple cover with fat white lettering that is almost painfully reminiscent of a great big bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. I read it in the space of an evening after a hard day and then felt exactly as you do after scoffing down said big bar of chocolate – slightly bloated and nauseous but on an alarming buzz. In other words, unapologetic recreational reading at its very finest, of the sort that caters exactly to my quirks and prejudices. I find, and have always found, conspiracy theories (and theorists) fascinating - and this book has some crackers, the best being that an alliance of influential arms dealers had a hand in Diana’s murder to halt her anti-landmine campaign and, through it, her strong influence on Bill and Hillary Clinton. I also remain profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of Prince Charles as King, largely due to his utter inability to refrain from interfering in politics. Dislike of him, his horrible second wife and his offspring (boys who think that dressing up as a Nazi is a jolly good joke) has come close to turning me into a republican.

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I have a funny feeling that if the British monarchy actually survives Charles’ accession then it is not destined to continue down a line descended from him. It is my observation that our royal family has proved to be most stable in the hands of women (Two Elizabeths and a Victoria to be precise, plus the argument that they wouldn’t have made it this far without the hard work of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in shoring up her husband George VI). Therefore I think that if it is going to survive for the next 50 years it probably needs either Princess Anne (a popular public choice but way down the succession) or Prince Andrew’s eldest daughter Beatrice (currently fifth, and the first woman in line) to be Queen.

Which is not as unlikely as it might sound, actually, when you consider what a perfect re-run of history that would be - the exact circumstances under which Elizabeth, eldest of two daughters of the Duke of York, acceded to the throne herself. Charles himself is nearly sixty now; there is some evidence that William might not be too keen on the top job; and a definite question mark exists over the paternity of his younger brother. Therefore you see how, as things stand now, the death of one elderly man, one hissy fit and one DNA test are all that stand in the way of the British monarchy departing from the Wales line and going off down the York one for the second time in a hundred years. You heard it here first, although whether public support for the whole motley crew would collapse completely under the strain of these events, and whether William would ever be allowed by family and the pressure of public opinion to walk away from the throne, are both moot points.

Hang on a minute. This is not the conspiracy theory du jour. What does all this actually demonstrate in terms of this book? That the author of a tome on royal conspiracy theories is totally preaching to the choir with me as a reader and I in turn am not being challenged in the slightest by reading it. This is what I mean by recreational reading that’s probably about as nutritional as chocolate, but does have a huge feelgood factor attached, something I suspect we could all do with a bit more of in our lives.

On a serious note, the book spends about half its 250 pages surveying the events leading up to Diana’s demise (including her oft-repeated claim that The Family would have her bumped off in a car crash) and the other half summarising what happened on the night of her death and subsequently. It has strong opinions and does not shy away from expressing them. It is mildly, but not very, critical of Diana herself. There are major questions raised that deserve answers - the provenance of Henri Paul’s blood sample, the conduct of the French and British investigations, the opening up to judicial inquiry of files on the case held by the security services, American surveillance of our royals and whether Charles and the charming Camilla really are fit to serve as head of state and consort (I would say not, but that will not come as a surprise to readers by this point in the narrative). Maybe the latest attempt at an inquest will bring us some answers but, as the author of the book states, the truth is that we will probably never learn the full truth about Diana’s death.

Some links:

• Wikipedia: Diana’s death
• BBC’s The Conspiracy Files: How Diana Died
• Transcript of The Conspiracy Files programme
• Scotsman article quoting the author
• BBC conspiracy theories quiz
• Wikipedia: Line of succession to the British throne
• Wikipedia: Republicanism in the United Kingdom

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 1:07 pm and is filed under 2007 reading challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.