If Diana was alive:
Would the "public sympathy-pendulum" have swung towards Charles by now? So that he would now be much more popular than he is today.
That had in fact started to happen before she died.
Charles: Accepted, but still controversial. His approval ratings were at around 70%, and both his 'positive' and 'going to be a good monarch' ratings were at 60% and he got a lot of credit from the media before this 20th anniversary. Not bad for a man who has received so much criticism.
So it must be frustrating for Charles to see it disappear before his eyes, and his positive ratings is now down from 60% to just 36%. But he's turning 70 next year and we are probartly going to se William and Harry praising him in documentaries etc, and I hope that will be enough to heal the damage done to him this year.
Is he going to be popular/beloved and admirred like his mother? No way, but I think/hope that he vill be respected.
Another person I'm impressed with is William: He has received more criticism than Charles in recent years, but his approval ratings are at 75 to 80%, not bad.
Well, Royal Norway, everyone, every single person, is entitled to their own opinion on the subjects of these threads, and I would hope that no one poster is taken as a guru and the absolute last word on everything. We are all entitled to disagree with each other if we wish.
As regards Diana's popularity in 1997 and now, if Diana wasn't popular then what were those huge mounds of flowers in front of the Palaces paced by Britons and visitors alike for, then? If she wasn't popular then, why did people wait for sometimes eight hours to sign condolence books? If Dians isn't popular and remembered today then why the literally hundreds of documentaries and articles produced for the 20th anniversary, several of which her sons participated in?
1. Young beautiful scandalous ex wife of the heir to the throne who had turned in to a soap opera with several lovers etc and who, yes, was loved by her fans, but not by a majority of the UK population as most polls showed when she was alive.
2. And then she dies tragically in an accident and two young boys are left behind with the world and media as witnesses.
3. The world (including the Queen and the royal family) was in shook and Dianas fans were of course heartbroken and they took to the streets.
4. The Queen and Charles then said in statements that they were "deeply shocked and distressed by this terrible news."
5. The immediate response of the British people was to turn on the press. So what did the press do? Turn it round and blame HM. With hindsight we know what the Queen did in looking after her grandchildren was the right thing and almost all commentators/experts have rightly defended the Queen (during the past 10 years) for her actions in 1997 when she put family before duty for the first and and probably last time in her life.
6. And yes, the grief was enormous: One million people in the streets, all the flovers and over 32m watched the funeral on televition etc. But if another beautiful young person had been married to the heir to the british throne during the 1980s and 90s and did some charity work etc (as they are expected to do), then we had got the same reactions to that persons death.
7. But as I've been reading in articles from 1997 and told by family members (other british posters have written about it here over the years as well), members of the public complained to the BBC about to much coverage, other sat at home and was angry at the media and the Queen received thousands of supportive letters who was disgusted with the way she was treated.
8. And the british broadcaster Jeremy Paxman once says, that he was more impressed with the fact that hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets for the procession from the Queen's Chapel to Westminster Hall for the 101-year-old Queen Mother + the more than 200,000 members of the public who queued for hours to pay their respects as she lay in state in much colder weather than it was during the funeral for the young and beautiful Diana who was tragically killed in an accident.
9. Many in the press (expessaly the guardian) speculated that the death of a 101-year-old Queen dowager (who hadn't been consort for over 50 year) wasn't going to bring people out in the streets? Well they were wrong, as usual.
Look a tragic accident took the life of a very popular lady. Her children now venerate her memory and so it should be. Some things done well at the time, others not. I don't believe, other than Charles and the children there was much grief in the family. Harry questioned if his Mother was dead, when in the church, at the service they thought was important, her name wasn't mentioned. She wasn't royal anymore, sorry. The BRF wanted a closed, small out of our way funeral. What they got was an extravaganza. They never understood it. If, nothing else, Diana's death made them realize they were not the center of the universe.
All those things have been proven wrong in recent years - here's what we now know:
1. The Queen took the decision to have ceremonial funeral, been mentioned in several interviews with former palaces officials since 2012.
2. From a Newsweek article I posted in the funeral thread - from Dickie Arbiter:
Not everyone agrees with the significanec this version of history gives to Diana's death. Dickie Arbiter, a royal commentator who formerly worked in various senior roles in the Palace and was one of two press secretaries on duty when the princess died, says that while the royal family has clearly had to move with the times over its history, “the institution has been evolving for 1,000 years, it constantly adapts and changes and because of Diana’s death it didn’t suddenly switch from being one thing to another.”
Of particular frustration to Arbiter was the drive to bring in outside PR advisors like Lewis, which he saw as a “knee-jerk reaction” to a non-existent problem. “I believe that we got the funeral arrangements absolutely 101 percent right,” he says, and speaks of his frustration in particular with spin doctors from then-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office, who assisted with the management of Diana’s death and funeral. “They were the Downing Street lot, the new kids on the block, and they thought they knew everything,” he says.
At the first planning meeting for Diana’s funeral, Arbiter recalls, the question was raised as to whether Diana’s coffin would be borne in a hearse or on a gun carriage (in the event, the latter was chosen). “One of those Downing Streets said: ‘you can’t put it on a gun carriage, that’s too militaristic,’” says Arbiter, “until it was pointed out to them that, hang on a minute, she was commander in chief of the London regiments. So she had a military connection.”
For Arbiter, these changes are just a reflection of a changing world. “We are a touchy feely society, we are a celebrity society today,” he says. “You go back 40 years, we weren’t a celebrity society, we weren’t a touchy feely society. Life evolves.”
Diana's ceremonial funeral was very simple without military contingents - why? Because she wasn't a monarch/consort, so it was desided that her charities was to walk with the princes from Clarence House to Westminster Abbey.
And if Diana’s coffin had been driven in a hearse to the Abbey, her funeral had been a non event when it comes to pomp and pageantry, so Diana fans can thank the palace for her funeral, not Blair and his people.
And this is coming from someone (me) who used to idolize her, but has now over the years developed a more balanced view.
