The Earl Spencer Diana Interview Analysis

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If you are currently overpaying on software to run your business, remember this number, 10,000. That's the number of new businesses that join Odo per month. Join OdoToday at Odo.com. That's Odo.com. Patrick. Laura, we meet a friend of ours who's not often here on Sunday with us in person.

1:02We say a warm welcome to Daniel Ruff, BBC Senior Royal correspondent. Thank you for coming in today because nobody better to help us pick over the full interview with Earl Spencer, which is in a separate episode in your feed. So if you haven't heard it yet and you're interested, do go and listen to it all. And we should say hello. I should let you speak. Goodness me, Harry. I'm talking for you. Morning, Laura. Hi, Harry. Nice to be here on a Sunday. And we're here for your analysis, please, Daniela, as we get underway with Sunday's newscast. Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. Humanity's next great four-year to begin. You know I like my buses. I've come all to them. I see that he was just a mirror of a town. Oh, not a lot. Thinking about it like a panter helped. Do we play music now? What do we do? And what will you do? Stir it all up. Hello, it's Paddy in the studio. Then it's Laura in the studio. And it's Daniela in the studio. Excellent. So we have got a lot to talk about with the airspenser interview and all of the very different

2:04notes that he hear to all the things that we discussed. But I think it is just where I'm starting with one of the clips that's been in the news this morning is when he talked about the parallels between Harry and Meghan are being treated and how his late sister was treated. Let's just hear the clip. I think there's this perception in the media that I'm on Harry's side. Well, I'm on my deceased sister's son's side, both of them. And if either of them wanted anything, then I'd be equally there for them. And I never get involved in one camp or the other except as a benign figure, I hope. That's my role. Do you think Diana would identify with the attention, the focus that has been put on them? And with Meghan who said she felt like she was the most trolled person in the world. They were here during the summer, not so long ago. If you look at an article in a tabloid about Diana or the couple that you were mentioning,

3:04Harry and Meghan, they can be really, really unpleasant. And I think it would be really beholden on people to learn from Diana's example. I'm not here to speak for Harry and Meghan, but for anyone who's being destroyed in this way, daily. It must be such a cancerous influence in their life. I saw it with Diana. I mentioned it in the eulogy, the tears of despair. One of the problems with Diana was she was very, very sensitive to criticism. And of course, I'm sure most of your viewers now think, oh, she had this splendid life and it was all amazing. She was so privileged and so perfect in so many ways. But she was really brought low by all that criticism. And yeah, I suppose it's a pity when I see echoes of that now. It's interesting in there. There's two things that I'd love to know your view on, Daniela. One is the different camps and whose side, quote unquote, Alessbentzer is on. And then second of all, the treatment of Harry and Meghan and whether or not you think those comparisons really bear out.

4:06So people do tend to think that Alessbentzer is in Harry's camp, don't they? Yeah, they do. And there is sort of evidence of that in terms of, you know, when we have seen him in public, we've got all this photos from the summer that Meghan posted of this kind of incredible idyllic, sunny family few days they had in all thought in the pool, was throwing the kids up in the air, you know, having clearly a really nice family summer holiday there. And I was also in St. Paul's Cathedral a couple of years ago for this Invictus Games Thanksgiving service. And Alessbentzer was there with Lady Jane Fellows, his older sister, and Harry was obviously there. And, you know, I watched really clearly the obvious warmth and intimacy and love between them all was so obvious. They spent ages talking to each other, the hugs, they sat close to each other. Alessbentzer had some of his children there and, you know, there was a kind of camaraderie or answer cousins, you know, you can see there was a closest. I think he's probably right to say I'm not in either camp. Now that's probably correct, but he's definitely closer to Harry. And you can be in both camps and closer to one side.

5:07And I think, you know, he would want both sons of Diana, both of his nephews to be happy. But I wonder how sharply different it all is from the last couple of years of the Lake Queen's reign, because it's open schisms, really. Camp is almost doing a lot of work, it's open schisms. It's sort of rival tribes. Right, right. And then Prince Andrew, defenestrated by his own brother, the two younger brothers falling out, the former brother-in-law launching this blistering book, 29 years later. I mean, it's just so much for the king. And if you read the papers, they're also tribal. You've got the Sunday Times, not known for its love of the monarchy. They say, Alessbentzer's peddling Diana, and it's got its crested carving knives out. Yeah, I'm his great turn of phrase, a crested carving knife. It's incredibly difficult for the king, and it's incredibly difficult for Buckingham Palace. He is trying to navigate a personal family division and trauma,

6:08which perhaps isn't his strong card. You know, he is a man, you know, heading towards 80, you know, a little bit of the weight of the world on his shoulders at times. I suspect he finds it very, very difficult to understand where both of his sons are coming from. We had, we know that Harry said in spare after the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral, you know, the king said to them both, you know, don't make my final years a misery. And unfortunately, Harry and William have not found a piece, and crucially, in linked to this story, there isn't anybody who seems able to bring them together. Could that have been their mother? You are left asking after your interview, or could she the only person in this mix that could somehow have helped them both navigate a piece? But from William's side, you know, I can't tell you how locked down they are and how they are not interested in getting publicly involved in this in any way. And Harry and his father, though, had also started to see each other a bit more. I mean, that's part of the reason he came back to the UK,

7:08and someone was suggesting to me actually this coming right now, just when there had been a friendlier, a bit of kind of intimacy returning between Harry and his dad, that this coming right now is just going to unsettle that still further. When it gets to that parallel that Charles Spencer makes there, where he, you know, used the word echoes between how Diana was treated, and how Harry and Meghan was treated. What do you think of that, Daniela? I think that's true. I think there are records of that, and I think you can see in terms of the level of media coverage and how critical some of that coverage is, how difficult it is to take. I think the crucial difference here is that Meghan is older, more robust, and has lived a little compared to where Diana was when she was having to cope with all of this coming at her. You know, Meghan married into the royal family in her mid-30s. She was a divorcee. She lived her life. She'd held down a career. She was financially independent. She's a very different person. That doesn't mean it won't have been painful and difficult for her to see,

8:10and what's being said about her and read what's been said about her. But she, you know, and she has spoken of her very clearly, particularly in that Netflix documentary that they did. But she is a more robust figure in this in terms of how she's handling it. And you can also see how they both, and, you know, I don't know, she does her own Instagram reels, but you can see how, from her point of view, either her as an individual or her as a team, she appears to be also very interested in controlling her own message and putting things out there, you know, just a couple of days ago. And I can't quite remember the sequencing, whether it was on the day, the book came out or the day before the book came out, but there was a post that she posted images of the kids back from the back, but then walking on on a muddy lane with a little union jack. And there's a cany-ness about how she either individually or has a team of people who are trying to manage her message and her commercial message because she's got business interests, too. Yeah, very much so. And I don't know whether she puts them together, but I can tell you with absolute certainty, she curates them.

9:10So whether she's actually physically putting them together, I mean, what goes out on Megan's Instagram is what Megan wants to go out on her Instagram. And you know, as you say that particular reel with the pictures of the, you know, muddy boots and kids in Wellie, I mean, I did actually think it hadn't been that rainier wet. And I mean, I don't know why, where the muddy Wellies and there was the open fire and the barefoot and it looked like Lillipets. It hadn't been that cold either, but it was very, this was their launch into sort of... Cold in the UK, you know, everything is curated and managed. And that is what she wanted presented in that moment. Because if you join the Docks Over many, many years, royal interviews and royal books rarely go well for the institution. Every time someone speaks, it's by and large the outcome is not welcomed. And if you think about Harry and Megan talking to Oprah Winfrey with their book, Earl Spencer talking to Laura Coonsburg with his book, every time these interviews happen, it doesn't end anything. It always seems to stoke something else.

10:12So you just then shot our really high chances of that interview with the King Paddy? No, no, I mean that they... They're all wanting it. We're all watching it. But I'm just saying it doesn't go... No, absolutely right. These things, you think of all of them. And I suppose when you... And also Diana's interview, which has come up in every possible way, which we've discussed yesterday, which you raised as well. If we can look at the interview in the round, also a fascinating section, I thought, on his views on the monarchy. It almost sounds like he prefers the Norwegian system. I mean, he doesn't say that, but he does praise the Norwegian system. He doesn't. And I hope if people listen to the interviewer or watch it or so on the tell it, his body language in that section of the interview was... I found it very interesting. Because we talked about lots of things and we'll get to some of the specific claims in a set. But I was fascinated by that. Because he's launched all these barbs at King Charles. And I thought, well, okay, well, actually do support the monarchy at all.

11:14What are you really trying to do here? And his answer then to say, well, they've got a very good one in Norway. And then to sort of say, well, I support a modern monarchy. And I think it's pretty clear that he doesn't think much of how the winzers are running the shop. And it went back to that ancient rivalry between these two houses. And fundamentally, Daniel, is it right? You say the Spencer's are basically a posher family than the winzers? Well, I think if you did a bit of aristocratic history that they are. I mean, I think you might find that he supports the monarchy, but maybe not the current King's version of the monarchy. And might be looking perhaps ahead to the next generation. I mean, he's very keen on all things Norwegian. Now he has a Norwegian wife. He loved the Norwegian football team during the World Cup. He now loves the Norwegian monarchy. So Norway is a big thing. But yeah, I mean, he clearly that European approach to monarchy, more informal, more relaxed, more accessible, less pomp and ceremony, and what have you, that's clearly something he is keen on.

12:16But I mean, from a personal perspective, it's clear he and the King do not have a good relationship. They're not close and they've got this history. It's pretty obvious he wasn't going to be that happy about the current man in charge. What was the word he used? I want to say flummery. Flummery, that's a good word, isn't it? Yeah, flummery, it's a fresh word. Sounds like a pudding, doesn't it? So he's saying... Flummery and custard. He's saying there's a lot of flummery. And that sort of, you remember Harry called the King's private secretary, the wasp. And this obsession with the court and the court cheers and how the royal family is actually run, I suppose, by the people who are closest to it. But it was interesting. I wonder if he was hinting at something which we know William and Kate have talked about, or let it be known. Yes, that they are a streamlined, modern monarchy and are having their heads... Yeah, a different way of doing things. And he has definitely aligned with his nephew, William, on that one, who has said, on and off the record, the flummery is not up history.

13:17And actually, when you go on engagements with William, he's already getting rid of the flummery. So, you know, if you go with the King, there's a Lord left tenonness and the what have you. He doesn't have that. He likes to arrive at where he's going, William, go straight in and meet the person who is in charge of wherever he is. He doesn't want a long line up of dignitaries, he doesn't want to do that. And that, you know, that is different to what it is. That's interesting. So that's already a different way. Already a place in some ways. Yeah, pointing to the picture. Yeah. Let's then just talk about one of the really controversial specific claims, which is about the phone call that happened between Charles and Charles. This is all like Charles V. Charles, isn't it? Between Charles and Charles, when the then Prince Charles, phoned Charles Spencer when his former wife had just died. I remember picking up the telephone. I was upstairs in my house in Cape Town. And he was telling me how he had told the boys, William and Harry, at Bar Moral, and broken the news to them.

14:18And I felt, as I say in the book, actually, I felt there was sort of giddy tone. I'd had a lot of calls that day from people who cared, who were stunned, like we all were. And I just felt there was a lightness in his tone about Diana's death that really jared with me. You write that he was giddy elated, like a lottery winner. When you're suggesting he was somehow pleased that his former wife was dead. I, well, I'm reporting, every word in this book, I report exactly as I saw it and felt it at the time. And I was surprised at the giddiness of his tone. That's what I'm recording there. It's an incredibly damning thing to say, though, about his reaction to the death of the mother of his children. And you go on to write, I suspect the prince's reaction must have been to think more of how this event might free him to marry the woman he loved,

15:21rather than appreciating the loss of the one he did not. You're suggesting there in black and white that the now king felt that Diana's death was rather convenient, because he would be able to marry Camilla. That is how I felt at the time from the tone of his voice. So I've only ever had two calls from him, and they were both around this time. One was on that day of Diana's death, and one was a couple of days later. Are you sure that's what he was thinking? I cannot be sure. I'm saying that's what I assume from the tone is a possibility, and that's all I can do. You made an interesting facial expression just at the end of that clip, Daniela. I mean, that's just really hard for the palace to hear. I think it's incredibly powerful, and he seems genuine in what he remembers and what he says. And I suppose you're in a situation here where could everybody be right? I mean, could that be exactly how Earl Spencer remembers that conversation?

16:23Could that be how he interpreted it at that time of immense grief and great emotional charge? And could Buckingham Palace be right and say, it doesn't sound like the king? It's not what he would say, it's not what he would do. It just doesn't sit right. He doesn't recall this kind of account of things. Well, we can go further, can't we, because of the palestatement. We can. I mean, what would you say, because you know, you read palestatement's plural much more than I do? This business, well, you tell us what you made of it, what's the significant part of it, and what do you read into it? It was, actually, on Wednesday night, when that first news story dropped from the male head of the first extract being published. You know, the news desk, obviously, then say, we know what are the palestatement going to say. My instinct at the time was, are they not going to say it? They're not going to step into this. It's too personal. It's too critical of the king. They waited to roar even 30 years on. It's not the kind of thing they're going to lean into in any way. How wrong I was within an hour or so. There was that pretty full statement.

17:25I thought a lot of it, a lot about it, over the past few days, actually, on reflection. And, you know, clearly saying anything, you know, sends petrol on the flames, you immediately generate the headlines that is war of words, because you have both sides. And there are people who have reported on the royal family for a lot longer than me, who think silence is always the best way, a dignified silence, if silence is always dignified, I don't know, but it's the best way forward. I mean, I think on a professional level, I mean, for me as a royal correspondent, it was great to have the statement. It's much easier to report on a statement than it is on silence. And so much in that statement as well, the tone, the mood of it, the way it was written. I mean, that, you know, that, that, that, parking back to recollections may vary, but on a personal level, if we're allowed to have personal views on this, I just think, you know, we live in a really noisy world. And the criticism of the King was very direct. I wonder whether those days of, never explain, never complain all the other way around, or over, and I wonder whether, you know, mostly silent, but sparing in their response is actually helps.

18:33And I think they felt they needed to have a say. Well, is there a precedent this time? I mean, maybe they've set a precedent down because it'll be tricky if there are more claims from, or else, Spencer, and actually at the end of the interview, he says, I know lots more things about the King that would be very damaging. And I kind of thought, all right, what's going on here? And it sounded like a threat. And he says, oh, it's not a threat, and I won't ever say them. But even him even saying that on the record, that's not stuff that's in the book. You know, these were things that he was saying, so beyond the, essentially, I'm playing, oh, well, I could have done much, much more damage than this. And once you've given a statement or something, there is a precedent that people expect you to do it again and again and again. But tell me this, with your knowledge of how all of this works, would that statement have word for word been agreed or even directed by the King himself? Approved by the King, I would say, you've got a private secretary, it's a Clive Alderton, a common secretary, Tobin Andre, who would have been very involved in the construction of that statement.

19:33But it would not have been published without the King wanting it to be out there. You know, it would have been run by him. So there's no, no, no question that it went out there with his approval. And you also hear Charles Spencer say in our interview, and it's quite a politician's answer, isn't it? But pointing out that they don't deny it. I mean, they don't deny it. They give a very strong impression that Charles Spencer is wrong-headed in giving that version of events. But it's not, if it was a politician saying we'd be saying, ah, but that's not a complete denial, is it? And we would be leaping on those words to say it's not a complete denial. No, it isn't. And I think that's also because they wanted to sort of fit all statement, which is they're not going to say anything else now. But that statement works for everything that happened subsequently by not picking up on anything specific, which is what they are saying. You've got the statement, just go back to that. We're not going to give you any more. The lines that I remember were fraternal grief clouds, the judgment, basically. And I put this to Dickie Arbiter, who was the Queen's press secretary, and was running the media operations for the time of the funeral.

20:34And I thought he would say silence would have been better, but he said in this age, in the speed and the breadth of commentary, he backed the decision to make the statement. And he's from the era of really complete silence. And this is your territory. I spoke to one of the King's friends for 30 or 40 years, Dame Julia Cleviden has been an aide to the King and running some of his charities. And she lost her husband just before Princess Diana's death. And she had two children of roughly the same age. So she had a completely different memory of what sort of man the then Prince of Wales was in dealing with her. So here's a little bit of what she said this morning. He could not have been more supportive, loving, concerned about the children and interested and really, really of an incredible emotional support to me. And remember he rang me on his way to Paris to collect Princess of Wales body and said, oh Julia, that's all single parents now.

21:41He's done his absolute damnedest to support those young men. And they have in their own ways done incredibly important and great things. That takes you back to the truth here is that this is about a 36 year old woman who died in a terrible way, leaving behind two kids who had been separated from her husband, which is always a fracture in any family. And like in lots of families, they found it very, very, very hard to move on. But what damage if any, Danyl, you think this will do the royal family in the long term, all of this mess? Well, they're great survivors of royal family aren't they? Even after all of these books and in big interviews over the years, they seem to just manage to come out the other side and things don't change dramatically. But I think there is damage here because for Buckingham Palace, you know, in the past three days, they are having to answer questions about the honesty and the integrity of the King.

22:42I mean, that is a terrible place for them to find themselves in and not what they want to be doing at all. And especially because this stage of his life, the King's public image is very much one about, you know, he is somebody who's lived a lot, he has wisdom, he has great kindness and compassion. So to have this kind of stuff coming out really does dent that a little bit. I mean, their position will be that they hope they can just roll with this slightly now, get through the next few days, which they know could be rough going. And just carry on with royal duties in that usual sort of business as usual way, but it is damaging because it is making people have to sort of say, who do we believe here? Can God, would he say that? Would he do that? I mean, I think we have to remember as well about the time that Elsbent is recounting, which is a very specific conversation about the funeral arrangements. But anything have been worse that week than what William and Harry should be doing on the day of the funeral. I mean, that must have been such an incredibly charged and difficult time.

23:43And as you suggest, perhaps everybody's right here. And also, as I think some listeners and viewers might think, maybe everybody hasn't behaved well. There's been a lot of strong push back also to some people saying that Charles Spencer, why is he dragging this a lot of wise? He's putting the family through this wise, he's doing it in public. And maybe some family secrets are better left unsaid. Did you ask him if he's got any more of this because basically that's what people always want to know about Harry and Meghan. There's a tour, there's a book, there's an interview, and then there's another moment. So what's the Elsbent's media plan? He said he's done. I don't think he's done in terms of talking about this book anymore. But I think he was very clear, and let's see what happens, that in terms of saying, giving more information about Diana that he hasn't given up until this point, he said very clearly that he was done. I think it's possible that he might pop up again at some point in the next few days to talk a bit more about this particular book, but he sort of said, yeah, that's me done. I'm going off into the sunset, say an RSC later.

24:52And he did say that as well ahead of when he said he was writing the book, that this was his moment to get it all out there. It's 30 years next year since the death of Diana. He was already getting a lot of incoming about interviews and doing things around the anniversary. He said, I didn't want to do that. Therefore this is my recollection in my own words. But also in our interview, I felt he's still living this, and this is part of what he said towards the end of our conversation. How much do you miss her? Well, every day, you know, that's the thing with sibling loss, you never get over it. Do you think there may be a time where you've used the phrase, get over, but read in the book, and given how this is all played in public? There is a sense that somehow what happened to her has understandably almost consumed you at times.

25:57I have a very luckily, I have a hugely diverse and happy life. One of the reasons I call this swan song actually is because it's my sign off. I have been Diana's brother. This is my final take on the situation. And I have a wonderful happy life, gorgeous children, fabulous wife. And we live this much more normal life than this looks like. And that's my future. This is my swan song too. I'm not here to bang on about Diana. This is my final word, celebration of her. And I will step off into the sunset now and not be available for comment. Well, that's the answer I was interested in. Thank you so much, Daniella. Thanks, Fadi. Thanks, Laura. Thank you so much for coming in and helping us understand it. Thank you. That sound could mean a lot of things. And when something's going wrong at home, the hardest part can be figuring out what the problem actually is.

27:01At Thumbtack, you can upload a voice message or a photo. And our AI-powered search will help diagnose your project. Plus, the pros we know have over 14 million five star reviews, so you can hire with confidence. Thumbtack, we know homes. Hire the right pro today. With a subscription to the BBC website and app, you can now get early access to your favorite BBC podcasts. Listen to shows like you're dead to me in our time, good, bad billionaire, and more. Plus, there's all the other great benefits you get with the BBC subscription. From live streaming the BBC news channel and acclaimed documentaries to in-depth analysis and features. Visit BBC.com forward slash subscribe to find out more. Now, this is your trade. It's the conference season you've interviewed Sir Ed Davy. But I would like to suggest that we do some policies of the parties very clearly each weekend.

28:03I think that's a good idea. So this week is Lib Dems, Nexus, Labour, Nexus, Tories and Greens, I think. But we should also probably retrospectively do reform because the reform conference we were talking about other things around money. We weren't really doing policy where we so we have to do that retrospectively. But they're Lib Dems together in Brighton today and for the next few days. And I like this policy idea. So you're a starter for 10. How many should we do? Three. Three. And there's one flagged up very confidently in the papers today, which is to cut the fuel levy. Yes. And we spoke to Ed Davy about this in our interview. So the idea is to have an immediate 10 p cut in fuel duty to help people with the cost of living. And they say if you cut the fuel duty by 10 p, you cut the price of petrol per litre, actually by 12 p. Ed Davy says they've got the money, they would have the money to pay for it because the Treasury is making more cash on tax on fuel because the price has gone up. But it's an interesting thing because the Lib Dems aren't always, you know, they're not seen as tax cutters really because they're sort of sent to leftish these days.

29:07You know, they're liberals of sort of time to time face in different ways. But they're, you know, it's quite interesting to hear them put forward suggestions for tax cuts. Yes, the papers make a lot of that to them that they want to basically see off the Tories with that sort of tool. Then there's joined the single market and the customs union. And also the UK should join the EU's new migration and asylum pact as a way of tacking small boat crossings across the channel. Yeah. So that's three. We know also the Lib Dems have got lots of policies particularly for supporting carers and for the health service. It's a particular passion of Ed Davies. But there you are. We've given you three plus policies in the Lib Dems. And when people say on the street, they're all the same. They're not. They're not all the same. They're all very different. We're very different plans for the country. That's very true, especially in this era where we have a much more, I think we have more definition now between red and blue than we had a couple of years ago. And we have lots of other smaller parties who are prospering. And this is a nagging question for the Lib Dems. I think you're going to hear more about in the next few days.

30:09Why aren't they doing better when other smaller parties are managing to have quite a significant impact? I was, we have a present for you. Yes. So yesterday you said you were rubbish at making star fries. I am. Thank you Donna Chung has sent us a BBC Good Food recipe for a star fry. But has anybody got an authentic recipe for a star fry? Is there anybody who's got family star fry recipe or anything really special? I feel that's been quite offensive to Donna Chung. Donna, we appreciate your BBC Good Food star fry recipe. But do send them some others. Yeah, it's more that it's a method is my problem. I think I've got the idea that you've bung in a bit of this and a bit of that. But I should be reading Donna's suggestion because it's the method that really is undermined me for all my life basically. You're just after a free dinner. You can see through it. You can see through you a mile away. So that was linked to the 100th day of the Andy Burnham Premiership which is on the 27th of October it is marked. Yes.

31:09It is the day before the budget which is on the 28th of October. That's right. And on Sunday the 27th of September which is in seven days time we will be speaking to the Prime Minister that I am quite a conference in Liverpool. So if you have questions or stompers that you would like to put to him then do get in touch. You know how to do it. Well for now thank you very much for listening to Sunday's newscast. Goodbye. Bye. Newscast from the BBC. Well thank you for making it to the end of another newscast. You clearly ooze stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds and then without having to do anything else. Our The Andering Charts will miraculously make its way to your phone. Welcome to the haunted library.

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