Former
Panorama reporter Martin Bashir’s extraordinary TV interview with Princess Diana was broadcast on BBC1 on 20th November 1995. Diana’s criticism of Camilla Parker-Bowles provided the key soundbite — “there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded” — though her comments about Prince Charles’s accession were even more remarkable. Asked whether their eldest son William should succeed the Queen instead of Charles, she replied: “My wish is that my husband finds peace of mind. And from that follows other things, yes.”
In
Dianarama: The Betrayal of Princess Diana, Andy Webb calls the
Panorama interview “the most momentous footage the BBC has ever recorded, or will ever record”, and he’s probably right. As we now know, Bashir obtained the interview by deception: he commissioned graphic designer Matt Wiessler to create fake bank statements, and presented them to Diana’s brother Charles Spencer, who then put him in touch with Diana herself.
The forged bank statements added credence to a series of false conspiracy theories that Bashir told to Spencer and Diana. In the weeks leading up to the interview, he was essentially gaslighting Diana — Webb describes his “wicked intent” — exploiting her paranoia after
‘Dianagate’ and other scandals.
Dianarama is the first book on the Diana interview. It’s a comprehensive account of the background, the interview session itself, and the consequences for Diana, Bashir, and the BBC. Webb has spoken to most of the key players — except Bashir, of course, whose only public comment on Diana came in a brief
Sunday Times interview on 23rd May 2021.
The book pieces together a detailed account of Bashir’s contacts with Spencer and Diana prior to the interview. Webb also reveals the extent of the BBC’s efforts to cover up Bashir’s serious breaches of journalistic ethics. (The corporation carried out an internal investigation in 1996, though no disciplinary action was taken. BBC News executive Anne Sloman wrote a sinister and prophetic memo at the time: “The Diana story is probably now dead, unless Spencer talks.”)
In 2020, the BBC finally commissioned an independent inquiry into the Diana interview, led by John Dyson. Webb analyses Dyson’s findings, and the witness testimonies from Bashir and others, concluding that Dyson’s “whole assessment of the scandal must be called into question.”
Webb claims a pivotal role in exposing the facts about the interview: “it was only when I was able to get hold of a formerly secret document from the BBC, after a thirteen-year struggle, that the scandal burst into the open and Bashir’s duplicity was revealed for the first time.” He also writes: “I can say without being too swell-headed that something I did... finally brought it to light.”
He began his research into the story in 2007, when he submitted a Freedom of Information request to the BBC, but the corporation denied the request, and Webb moved on to other projects. He didn’t renew his investigation until 2020, when he sent another — much more fruitful — FoI request.
He made a Channel 4 documentary about the case later that year, and
directed a follow-up in 2021.
Much of the credit for exposing the story belongs to the
Mail newspapers. On 7th April 1996, less than six months after the
Panorama broadcast,
The Mail on Sunday first reported that Bashir had commissioned Wiessler to create the fake bank statements. Spencer gave a series of interviews to the
Daily Mail — published on 3rd, 4th, and 7th November 2020 — and it was his allegations that led the BBC to launch the Dyson inquiry. Webb was indirectly responsible for this, as he sent Spencer the replies to his 2020 FoI request, which prompted Spencer to talk to the
Daily Mail.
