Is the King gaslighting Diana's brother? | The News Agents

Why would you suddenly produce a book about your dead sister? The Queen used that brilliant phrase, recollections may vary, as a way of saying I don't think so. We have seen that the King has got a temper. And what Charles here is doing is trying masterfully to shut down that whole episode. Is it conceivable that the Prince of Wales, the King as he is now, said those comments, rest assured we'll forget her soon enough? I was talking to a good friend of the King's who said he's very upset. That tension, from what I'm hearing, is still present. The News Agent's podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK. Opening up a world of opportunity. This is a global production. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this. A girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was in the end the most hunted person of the modern age. She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys, William and Harry, from a similar fate. And I do this here, Diana, on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair. And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you are steering these two exceptional young men, so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned. That was Princess Diana's brother, Earl Spencer. His eulogy at her funeral on the 6th of September, 1997, changed the entire tenor of that moment and set up a historical rift between those two families. Now, 29 years on, that rift has grown ever wider, with Earl Spencer producing a memoir in which he claims that the king said, rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough. Why are these two families still fighting over the legacy of a woman who died nearly 30 years ago? Welcome to The News Agents. The News Agents. It's John. It's Maitlis. And we learnt yesterday that the Mail was going to serialise a memoir from Earl Spencer, Charles Spencer, who we heard there in that clip giving the eulogy in Westminster Cathedral after Diana died. And an explosive claim that apparently the king, then the Prince of Wales, said, rest assured, we'll forget about Diana soon enough. And that wasn't the end of it. The palace fired back almost immediately saying, maybe grief had clouded the reasoning of Earl Spencer and he wasn't remembering things properly. This was a conversation, allegedly, that took place between Charles Spencer and Charles Windsor and only those two people on the call knew what was said. But why now? Why is Earl Spencer bringing this out at this particular time when the king is on the throne and, by all accounts, in very poor health? It was really interesting, that statement, and I think we should sort of dig into it a little bit further because, in essence, he was said to be mindful. A very Charles sort of use of words. Earl Spencer's grief for his sister could cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory. On the surface of it, it sounds almost affectionate. It sounds like you're worrying about somebody who's in the depths of their grief. What he's really doing, I think, is updating that statement that the queen herself made after Meghan and Harry came out with their accusations of racism, the royal family. And the queen used that very brilliant phrase, recollections may vary. And recollections may vary has sort of, I think it's now entered common parlance, hasn't it? As a way of saying, you know, I don't think so. She doesn't have a clue or not quite. And what Charles here is doing is trying, I think, masterfully to shut down that whole episode and shut down the phone call and also remind us that if this man is still in profound fraternal grief 30 years on, what is this book about? You know, where does the book come into it? Why would you suddenly produce a book about your dead sister and have it serialized in the mail? And I think contained in that phrase by the king were all these sort of offshoots of the bigger question. But it does take us to the heart of something that I guess our younger listeners won't know about, certainly won't remember from the time, which was the funeral itself. And the controversy around the weeks preceding it after Diana's death, the role that the queen and the Duke of Edinburgh played and whether they were present enough, whether they were part of the public sort of vision of Diana's death enough, whether they were trying to protect Diana's children enough. And this whole question that we remember really well, which was the boys made to walk behind part of the funeral procession carried their mother's coffin. And apparently that question was right at the heart of what Earl Spencer was talking about. And the phone call where he was telling Charles that should never have been allowed. It's something I think Prince Harry has also reflected on, like how is a nine-year-old kid put in a position of having to be stared at by the entire world, billions of eyeballs around the world, whilst he was essentially part of his mother's funeral procession? Yes, I think that that is absolutely spot on. And that phrase from Charles Spencer's oration, their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you'd planned, Diana. That was absolutely a shot across the bowels of the royal family of do not turn these kids into kind of just these manufactured mannequins who only ever do royal duties and don't have the chance to be their own people. And the really telling thing about that, and I remember it vividly, was he said those words and it's obviously silent in the cathedral, but then applause ripples out from the tens of thousands of people listening outside. The unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds. And it sounded like a gauntlet being thrown down to the royal family by Charles Spencer, because as you say Emily, at the time there was a lot of discontent about the fact that the royal family hadn't come back to London quickly enough, whether the flag could be flown at half-mast, and then of course they started talking about all this absurd protocol about which flag flies on Buckingham Palace when the Queen is not in residence. And it just seemed like the Queen was out of touch, that was the charge that was made, when in fact, actually I think probably what the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were doing is saying, look you're in Balmoral, you can be kind of, you're safe here, this is a safe space for you, in which to... Let the boys cry. Let the boys cry, and keeping them away from the public glaze. But then you come, spin forward 29 years to today, and what is so unusual is in the statement from the palace, is that the normal mantra of the royal family is never complain, never explain. You take it, people can write what they bloody well like in the papers, if you're going to dignify everything that is ever written in a newspaper about you, you will never be doing anything other than issuing statements or rebuttals. And yet, on this, they have issued a rebuttal. And I think what it speaks to is one absolute rage and fury that Charles Spencer has done this. And I was speaking to someone last night who's close to the leading figures of the royal family who said, he is a vile man. It speaks to that, and it speaks to the fact that they probably realise that today is Thursday, there will be serialisation tomorrow, there'll be serialisation on Saturday, there'll be more revelations on Sunday, and so it will go on. And I think they just wanted to get their defence out quickly, fast, and strongly and powerfully, which is what they've done. Yeah, I mean, if you go back to that line, not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly, that really takes us to the dichotomy really, that face those boys when the parents split up. Because Charles was seen as very erudite, bookish, clearly wedded to tradition because he was going to inherit the throne. And Diana was seen as the free spirit, the woman who would go in the dead of night and visit the homeless, shake the hands of the AIDS victim. I can't tell you how powerful that was as a gesture to young gay men in the 80s and 90s, that she broke all protocol. She took her kids with her often. She said, these are not victims that we shun. These are people that you try and understand. And it really shifted the debate on AIDS, just as it really shifted the debate on homelessness. And I think there was a wariness amongst the sort of more traditional members of the royal family as to what are you doing? Are you just trying to court the public? It's a little bit like the conversation we're having now about the TikTok-ification of politics. Are you just a very good communicator? Are you trying to sort of, you know, get round the palace by sort of doing all your touchy-feely stuff? You know, she was called the princess of hearts, you know, that whole thing sort of stuck. And I think what's interesting is now, if you look at the division still between the boys, you've essentially got that same pull, which is, you know, how much of you has to remain rooted in protocol and tradition and saying and wearing the right things? And how much of you runs off to Oprah and spills your heart out? There is this sort of the Diana Charles thing is still sort of very present. And I was told actually, I mean, I was talking to a good friend of the King's who said he's very upset. That was what I heard. He's very upset about this. That's why you've got the statement now. He thinks that Earl Spencer is trying to sell books. But I think he also realises that some people will hear that phone call, you know, and go, yeah, that probably could have happened. It doesn't sound impossible. I could sort of believe Charles. And I think there is this debate right now about the direction that William is pulling in, where he wants to devote a lot of his attention to homelessness. You know, he wants to do homelessness and mental health, the stuff that was very close to his mother. And the King is actually also trying to say, yeah, but, you know, kind of look at the big picture. A lot of people are doing homelessness. A lot of people are doing mental health. You can actually do stuff that has a sort of longer, a longer legacy in the land, in the country, in the sort of shape of Britain. And so I think that tension from what I'm hearing is still present. Yeah, and I think that's interesting, the question, you know, is it conceivable that the Prince of Wales, the King as he is now, said those comments, And you kind of think, well, we have seen that the King has got a temper. There have been plenty of accounts where he has been petulant. When Princess Di died, I mean, the tensions were extraordinary in this country. I mean, you know, Britain went mad for two or three weeks. We were all grieving. We were all going to sign books of condolence. I think it's fair to say we were grieving different things. For some people, it was literally the disappearance of Diana. For some people, it kind of unlocked something. It was the most un-British thing. It was the end of the stiff upper lip. Exactly. It was the weak, wobbly lip that suddenly had predominance in Britain in the weeks after her death. So is it possible a conversation took place with Charles, who had to go to Paris to bring the body back to London, you know, lost his rag a moment in a conversation? It's possible. We don't know for certain. It's just one person's word against another. But I come back to that question. Why now? Why 29 years later do you want to give air and ventilate that particular comment that was made in the heat of despair and fraughtness and just, you know, the madness that was taking and gripping Britain and the royal family at that time? And you think, well, what is Charles Spencer doing? Why is he doing it now? Well, we know that he's quite close to Harry. I mean, look, I think... I mean, it does feel a bit of that, doesn't it? There's a lot of things that we should kind of say, the boring sort of, you know, housekeeping in this, which is that A, the book will have been written probably a year ago. B, he won't have chosen which headlines were serialised by the mail. The mail will have gone for the most sensational thing and will have picked that out. And maybe he'll be happy about that or maybe he'll feel that, you know, he got his pound of flesh and he received the money for it, but he wouldn't have chosen that line himself. You don't know what went on in those conversations beforehand. And I would also say that obviously, Harry coming back in September wasn't meant to be timed exactly with this book. So sometimes you can add things together and they make a bigger sum of the parts than the truth actually permits. But it's easy to portray this as team Harry and team William and team Harry being Harry and his uncle, you know, Charles Spencer and team William being William and the King and all of that side of it. I mean, it really is, you know, it does look like they're kind of, people are taking sides here again. Yeah, and I think, I mean, to your point about we lost our collective mind, it's also worth sort of talking a little bit about Tony Blair's part in this, Alastair Campbell's part of this, because Blair was new to the, I was going to say the throne, but you know what I mean? He was just in number 10 as of May the 1st, 1997. And this was his first sort of big public act to essentially go to tell the Queen, go to tell the senior royals that they had to be more visible, they had to be more present and they had to be sort of, you know, on the streets with their grieving public. And I think it was Alastair Campbell, I'm sure we'll hear from him if it wasn't, or if I've got this wrong, but I think it was him that coined this phrase, you know, the people's princess. And he was sort of very helpful to Blair to setting this narrative of like, do you realise the scale of what has just happened? I wonder whether if it hadn't been Blair, and if it hadn't been sort of three months into the job, and if it hadn't been that sort of cool Britannia age where, you know, London was buzzing and everything was happening and, you know, Noel Gallagher was hanging around Downing Street and the Union Jet was on the front of Vanity Fair, we would have sort of entered into that whole debate in quite the same way. Because as you say, I think now we're actually less wowed by the comms of it, and we're probably more in favour of privacy. And maybe the Queen's own response was absolutely right, which was, this is a private thing first, you know, we'll come out when it's time to come out. But a lot of, I mean, as you know, you know, a lot of religions and a lot of sort of traditions have a period of intense mourning, you know, before it becomes sort of public again. Just one other aspect to this, and it goes to the question that we've been talking about, about why the Royal Family and why the King, or through his, you know, comms department, responded so quickly and so firmly, is I think there's such a difference between attitudes in Britain and attitudes in other parts of the world. This will be playing huge in America, where I couldn't believe it when I moved to the States, which was, you know, 20 years after Diana died, and people were still saying to me, well, what do you think of what he did to her? I'm saying, sorry? What do you mean, what Charles did to Diana? Well, that was history. And for an awful lot of people, it's, no, no, no, they're still debating that. And Australia too, it's a huge story today about this, in a way that I think, in Britain- People without quite enough history of their own, dare I say. Yeah, exactly. But I think that you think, you know, I think in Britain, we think, I know the Charles Diana thing was awful, and it was, you know, a breakup of a marriage, and it was painful and agonizing, and awful what happened in the Alma Tunnel in Paris, and that car chase and the paparazzi, et cetera, et cetera. But we've moved on. I mean, you know, Charles is the king, Camilla is the queen, and that is sort of part of history. Whereas I think that, you know, Charles Spencer is probably very shrewdly thinking, this is going to sell a lot of books in America, it will sell a lot of books everywhere else. And, you know, to get this book out just before the 30th anniversary of her death, when there'll be a huge amount of stuff being published, is probably very smart and shrewd on his part. Let's not be priggish. Everyone who disapproves of what the Earl Spencer has just written, will almost certainly still read the book, one way or another. I'd be very surprised if this hurt him financially in any way whatsoever. Oh no, it won't hurt him financially, and he stands to gain a lot of money from writing this book. That is the context in which it should be seen. But you can understand, among Charles's close circle, Charles Windsor, the king, how furious, despondent, demoralising something like this is, where you're trying to host an AI summit, where you're trying to look to the future and how you can fulfil your duties as head of state. And you've got this kind of someone dragging you back 30 years. I mean, I know a lot of you will be saying, Jesus, why are you guys even talking about this? And there is something about the absolute mundanity in one way, which is that doesn't every family have a slightly dodgy uncle and siblings that don't get on, you know, and a divorce in the family, somewhere along the lines. It's a kind of every man's story in some ways. It's absolutely standard British sort of, you know, sitcom fare. Have you got anyone in mind for the dodgy uncle? I mean, well... There are a couple of them that you could name. Well, but in this story, you know, it is kind of like, is Charles Spencer pulling you this way? I mean, yeah, there's a few dodgy uncles in that family. But what I'm saying is, the only reason is that it has played out on such a ridiculously visual, visible scale, I think. Yes, and also, you know, if I have a row with my uncle or, you know, my children have a row with their aunt or uncle, no one cares. It's just in the family. And this, but if you, as soon as you commit it to print, and it is the royal family, it is headlines around the world where the fascination of the royal family is still absolutely immense. But for the people, the players in it, it just must be soul-sapping in a way that this stuff gets dredged back up with someone who's got a book to sell. Now, you might have missed a seismic bit of EU news this week, which was the moment that Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada to become the first associate member of the European Union. This is all part of Mark Carney trying to work out who his friends are, faced with this escalating row on tariffs with President Trump and a trade war. He's basically gone, yeah, I don't mind a pivot to the EU. You seem stable, normal, not psychotic. And von der Leyen's like, yep, come on in. I'm sure we can make things work. And of course, there are quite a few sort of Brits on the remainder side kind of going, what, wait, wait, how did they? How are they not us? Well, the reason is we left and they didn't even join. So he received this rapturous welcome at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday and was then treated as the guest of honour. Guess who wasn't very happy with that? Oh, oh, let's play and see if I can guess. No, I think it's laughable. Look, the whole thing with Canada, Canada has been a terrible trade partner. And no, I don't see that. And if they do that, if I think it's at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things. So if they do that, if Europe does that with a bad intention, if it's a good intention, that's fine. If it's a bad intention, we'll put very heavy tariffs on Europe. I'm going to whisper this next bit and I'm going to say it really quiet. It's your tariffs that have driven Canada to think about doing this in the first place. I mean, just going to double down. It worked so brilliantly last April. My tariffs are going so well, I'm going to put even more tariffs on and I put tariffs on Canada and I'm going to put tariffs on all of you. I mean, why wouldn't Canada seek closer business relations with the European Union if Trump, a friendly nation, supposedly to the south of Canada, is doing everything it can to be totally unfriendly? And so you've got a situation now where Canada is thinking, right, well, if the Americans are out to screw us, which they certainly seem to be, what would be the rational response to that? The rational response to that would be to seek some kind of associate membership of Europe. It's not quite the same as Australia singing in the Eurovision Song Contest, but it's kind of something along similar lines where you think... I think it is. I think the Eurovision Song Contest started this whole thing off. He was like, well, I'm joining them. I might as well join the EU at the same time. I hesitate now because I think if we start on the Eurovision Contest... Yeah, that is my specialist subject. ...you've got the rest of this podcast as your specialist subject. You're right. But I love his phrase because he said he's not proposing a third bloc to challenge great power rivals only with better manners. I love the idea that basically he's coming to the EU for good manners. But he says it's also about resilient nations, principled enough to strengthen international law rather than replace it. It's quite damning that. And this is what he said in response to Trump yesterday. And with respect to sovereignty, as I detailed in my remarks, and as has been our strategy from the start, we are looking for partnerships that are complementary, that reinforce our sovereignty. And that's what is on offer here. And Canadians are united that nobody is going to tell us what language we speak. No one is going to dictate our culture or with whom we can strike agreements internationally. Thank you. It's quite low-key, actually, quite sort of technocratic. But, you know, important to notice that at the State of the Union address that von der Leyen gave, she calls him Dear Mark, you know, sitting on the front row, Dear Mark. So they are all out to get Canada. And interestingly, about a year ago, I was at this breakfast at an embassy with... I thought you never did breakfast. No, I do. I do if it's a good embassy breakfast. And we were talking about the relationship Baltics have with Russia and Baltics, you know, have with NATO and all that kind of stuff. And I asked at that point whether people were ready to pivot from Trump, from America to Canada. And a few people there sort of laughed at me and said, oh, have you seen the size of Canada's army? Have you seen the size? They haven't even got nukes, they're not nuclear power. But the speaker there was kind of like, well, let's just say we're very interested to hear what Mark Carney has to say. And I genuinely think that in the last 12 months, you know, you cover the election, the election that should never have been his, the election that was won purely because of Trump, in essence, pushing people towards a kind of resurgent nationalist Canada. I genuinely think that people are starting to sort of say, well, who do you trust now? Where are the partnerships where you can get stuff done, where you can just rely on somebody turning up to the meeting and not exploding the whole thing and not sort of tipping their coffee over everyone's computer, you know, as in the Trump style of chaos. And actually, the EU and Canada are sort of remarkably aligned in temperament, slightly boring, slightly quiet, getting on with the job, sort of, you know, trying to sort ---- out. It kind of all makes sense, actually. But you just have to look. Trump has sown and what he is now reaping. You know, he got rid of Jay Powell as the chair of the Federal Reserve because he kept on putting up interest rates. Well, not cutting them. And not cutting. He didn't he didn't ever put them up. But he you know, but so Jay Powell was public enemy number one. You won't bloody well cut interest rates. I demand that interest rates be cut. So he gets rid of Jay Powell. A new guy. Come on, Kevin. Come on, Kevin Walsh. You're the new guy. What are you going to do? What did he do yesterday? He raised interest rates. Why did interest rates have to go up in America? Well, the Iran war and your tariffs policy, one affecting Canada, one affecting us, is that you have driven up the cost of goods in America so that they have to tamp down inflation. And the way you do that is raising interest rates. Why is Canada going to the European Union? Because of what you've done on your tariffs. Why are interest rates are going up? Because of what you've done. If you locked yourself in a box and said nothing, the economy would be much better off. Exactly. So these are the policies that Donald Trump has promoted, has promulgated, has been an advocate for. And now he is paying the price that Canada wants to do closer business with the European Union. Americans are having to pay more for their mortgages as a result of the policy in Iran and the tariffs policy as well. Look, I said that he has a slightly boring technocratic tone. He also has another gear, which is, let's just say, quietly less diplomatic. I went to the White House in the spring of last year. And at the end of the meeting, the president gave me, I want to give you a mark. I want to give you something really special. President Trump. Yeah, yeah. President Trump. I want to give you something very special. So special, Mark. So special. And I opened this box and it's this big gold key. I was like, wow, Mr. President, that's fantastic. He said, yeah, it's a key to the White House. You just bring it, they'll let you in. And then he says, maybe they'll shoot you. And that sort of sums up the relationship that we have. We cover a lot of political interaction on this podcast. Prime Minister's questions, what happens in America. We don't often do questions to the London Assembly. Today we are. Zach Polanski, who's a London Assembly member, was speaking and asking a question to the Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan. So my question is, would you be prepared to say no to a data centre if it's secured, if it didn't secure clean water and energy supply? Assalam-o-Alaikum. I was worried that you'd ask a question in Urdu, but you asked a question in English. This week I'll be in the Holborn Banking Office with Mr. Khan. Maybe we'll meet. Well, I thought, Chair, that as the member, so professionally in Urdu, I would speak in Urdu. I was worried the question may be Urdu. And for those Urdu speakers, I apologise if I spoke with a Russian accent. He does not miss a beat. That is Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, son of a Pakistani bus driver who has got what sounds like fluent Urdu, throwing it back in Zak Polanski's face after the Green leader went campaigning in his by-election, hopeful, in Holborn St Pancras in Urdu, trying to speak Urdu to essentially win over parts of the electorate that he thought he could get with a special Urdu message rather than the normal English one. I wonder whether Zak Polanski, I bet the first five seconds he thought, I don't understand what's going on here, and then thinking, oh, I have been rinsed. You actually want the camera to pan straight back onto Zak Polanski to see the colour. Yeah, exactly. Brilliantly done. We'll be back tomorrow. We'll see you then. Bye-bye.