IAnji Hunter, Tony Blair’s head of government relations and his former ‘gatekeeper’ at No 10, has spoken publicly for the first time about the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death.
Laying bare the tensions that arose between the different factions in the run-up to Diana’s funeral, she remembers her first conversation with the PM following the news of the Princess’s fatal car crash in Paris in 1997.
‘I was on the phone to Tony and he got it straight away. The phrase was, “My God, these are enormous doings.” He told me: “We’ve got to be absolutely wise and sensible and focused”.’ (Marg: Thus "The Peoples Princess"?)
Hunter recalls her role on the Palace committee set up to organise the funeral. It wasn’t long before problems arose. ‘The most tension in the room always came from Charles Spencer’s people,’ says Anji.
The programme (7 Days that shook the Windsors) will claim Earl Spencer wanted to walk alone behind Diana’s coffin, but royal advisers were not happy.
Prince Charles was adamant that he also wanted to walk behind it. But the rest of the funeral team felt William and Harry, then 15 and 12, should be there, too. However, William was refusing to join the procession, saying he wanted to grieve privately.
Hoping to persuade William to change his mind, five days before the funeral on September 6, the team set up a telephone conference call with Balmoral via a big loudspeaker box on their conference table.
‘I can remember — it sends a tingle up my back, actually,’ says Hunter. ‘We were all talking about how William and Harry should be involved and suddenly from this box came Prince Philip’s voice. 'We hadn’t heard from him before, but he was really anguished.
'It’s about the boys,” he cried, “They’ve lost their mother.”
'I thought, “My God, there’s a bit of suffering going on up there.” ’
When Hunter’s husband Adam Boulton wrote about the same episode in his 2008 memoir, he recalled that Prince Philip actually used a profanity, so exasperated was he by Downing Street’s attempt to dictate the roles William and Harry should play at the funeral.