A Journey (26 page)

Of course the numerous practicalities and logistics also needed to be sorted out: calls to make and to take; how the body would come back; the funeral; the business of government (would the Scottish referendum campaign continue or not, for example) – everything from the significant to the utterly trivial required focus, since at these moments the trivial can become significant suddenly and without warning.

However, all the time the main part of my mind was going over what I would say. Robin Cook had just stepped off a plane in the Philippines and had already said something, much to Alastair’s irritation. I told him not to worry; all that mattered was what I would say, and we agreed it should be just before the church service in Trimdon Village at 10.30 a.m.

The Palace had, of course, put out a statement, but there was no intention for the Queen to speak. Just before I left for church I had my first telephone call with her, in which I expressed my condolences. She was philosophical, anxious for the boys, but also professional and practical. She grasped the enormity of the event, but in her own way. She was not going to be pushed around by it. She could be very queenly in that sense.

By then I had worked out what I wanted to say. I scribbled it on the back of an envelope, and discussed it with Alastair. I had talked to others of the close circle by now, but at this moment it was his advice and input I needed. His judgement in these situations was clear, exemplary and forthright. The last thing you need at a time like that is a back-coverer, vacillator or sycophant.

The phrase ‘people’s princess’ now seems like something from another age. And corny. And over the top. And all the rest of it. But at the time it felt natural and I thought, particularly, that she would have approved. It was how she saw herself, and it was how she should be remembered. I also wanted to capture the way she touched people’s lives, and to do so in a way that acknowledged her own life hadn’t been smooth or easy. Failing to mention her problems somehow felt like being dishonest about her; and more than that, undermining what she meant to others. What they loved was precisely that she was a princess but still vulnerable, still buffeted by life’s ups and downs, capable of healing their wounds because she herself knew what it was like to be wounded.

We drove the couple of miles to the green in the centre of Trimdon where the old church stands. It is a beautiful church with one of the few surviving Norman arches around its altar, a pretty garden and the graveyard that Lily Burton and her friends used to tend. Cherie and the children went on ahead inside. Alastair had arranged for a pooled press group to be present. I got out of the car and just walked up and spoke. It was odd, standing there in this little village in County Durham, on the grass in front of an ancient small church, speaking words that I knew would be carried around the country and the world. They would be a major part of how people thought of me. Even today people talk to me about it. You think of the great speeches, prepared over days and weeks, the momentous events that shape modern history and in which I played a part, the political battles, the crises, the times of elation, and despair; yet those few words scribbled on the back of an envelope probably had as much coverage as anything I ever did. The key thing is to put all of that out of your mind, don’t think about how big it is, don’t feed all the inner demons who suggest all the things that can go wrong. Just go out and do it.

Except in this case – and I know this sounds contrived – just before speaking I paused for a moment and thought of her, reminding myself that most of all I should speak for her. This is what I said:

I feel like everyone else in this country today – utterly devastated. Our thoughts and prayers are with Princess Diana’s family – in particular her two sons, two boys – our hearts go out to them. We are today a nation in Britain in a state of shock, in mourning, in grief that is so deeply painful for us.

She was a wonderful and warm human being. Though her own life was often sadly touched by tragedy, she touched the lives of so many others in Britain – throughout the world – with joy and with comfort. How many times shall we remember her, in how many different ways, with the sick, the dying, with children, with the needy, when, with just a look or a gesture that spoke so much more than words, she would reveal to all of us the depth of her compassion and her humanity. How difficult things were for her from time to time, surely we can only guess at, but the people everywhere, not just here in Britain but everywhere, they kept faith with Princess Diana, they liked her, they loved her, they regarded her as one of the people. She was the people’s princess and that’s how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and in our memories forever.

I used the phrase ‘kept faith with Princess Diana’ for a very particular reason. For some time before her death – and most of all recently, because of the relationship with Dodi – the jackals had been on the prowl. Parts of the media (the
Mail
especially) were gauging whether or not they could go for her. I knew they wanted to, and I had warned her of it when we met at Chequers, but they were nervous about it, unsure of the public reaction. So they contented themselves with laying down themes of criticism that could be developed, small barbs here and there, the occasional frontal attack, but nothing amounting to a campaign. The reason they held off was that her support was deep and quite visceral in its way, and people did keep faith with her. They were not going to let her be sacrificed. I knew that she would want those people to be recognised too. Would that support have continued in a future in which she remarried, grew older, became an even greater figure of controversy as well as renown? It is hard to say, but a decent part of it would surely have clung on. People knew her faults, and they didn’t love her any the less for them.

The national mood was exactly what we thought: an outpouring of sadness. But already it was tinged with anger that she had been taken away. At first, the rage was turned on the paparazzi who had been following her. It is perhaps hard to convey what it is like to be a public figure and feel hounded. And for perfectly understandable reasons, many people don’t feel sorry for the famous, most of whom have willingly taken that path. They often have a rich lifestyle. They take the upside, so the argument goes, and should jolly well put up with the downside. Anyway, small price to pay, isn’t it?

Except in Diana’s case it had gone way beyond a small price. She was literally hunted down. She was a very valuable commodity, a gold mine that was constantly plundered. The digging was deep and unusually desperate because the gains were so immense. Of course, media people say she was happy to pursue the media when it suited her, but this is a far less compelling argument than it seems. The truth is, in the full glare of media attention, you have no option but to engage with them, to try to mould their view of you, to try to prevent a different and often unflattering and unfair view from taking hold. In other words, sometimes this is a purely voluntary act, while at other times – as with Diana – there is no choice: either you attempt to feed the beast or the beast eats you. Now, at points she fed them more than was necessary, but that doesn’t alter the basic fact: she was subject to a degree of persistent, intrusive and dehumanising harassment that on occasions was frightening, excessive and wrong.

That Sunday morning, the royal family attended a service in Crathie Church at Balmoral as usual. There was no reference to Diana. I knew the Queen would have felt that duty demanded that the normal routine was followed. There would have been no Alastairs in the entourage suggesting that possibly mentioning the tragedy might be sensible. The point is: the Queen is a genuine, not an artificial person, by which I mean there is no artifice in how she approaches things. While her absolute preoccupation was protecting the boys, it was to protect them first and foremost as princes. There would have been no question of them not going to church that day, hours after their mother had died. It was their duty as princes. Of course, to some of the public this looked incredibly, almost blatantly, insensitive.

I knew that swings in sentiment can come and go. I knew, too, that firmly set underneath there was a deep and abiding affection for the Queen. But this was a unique case. As the days passed, the crowds grew. Three books of condolence at St James’s Palace became four, became fifteen, became forty-three. The outpouring of grief was turning into a mass movement for change. It was a moment of supreme national articulation, and it was menacing for the royal family. I don’t know what would have happened if they had just kept going as before. Possibly nothing, but in the eye of that storm, unpredictable and unnerving as it was, I couldn’t be sure.

The refusal to lower the flags at Windsor Castle and the Tower of London was because Diana was technically no longer a member of the royal family, having been stripped of her HRH title. The flag at Buckingham Palace was not flying at all because, by tradition, only the Queen’s personal standard is flown, and then only when she is in residence. She was staying at Balmoral because she didn’t come to London in September. Again, by tradition. It was all very by the book, but it took no account of the fact that the people couldn’t give a damn about ‘the book’, actually disliked ‘the book’, in fact, thought ‘the book’ had in part produced the chain of events that led to Diana’s death. In the strange symbiosis between ruler and ruled, the people were insisting that the Queen acknowledge that she ruled by their consent, and bend to their insistence.

Public anger was turning towards the royal family. At the same time, it hadn’t abated towards the press who, sensing this, understood that they needed to direct it at the other target. And to be fair, they were releasing genuine public feeling and, like everyone else, struggling to read where it might all go.

There were also two camps inside Buckingham Palace. One was thoroughly traditional, and had not regarded Diana as an asset but as a danger. They felt that to give way to press and public pressure was to start down the slippery path to a populist-driven monarchy, which would then lead to the monarchy ceasing to be true to its station, and therefore losing its essential
raison d’être
. As admirably tough and principled as that approach was, it seemed hopelessly out of touch. While they may have understood the sadness of the people, they didn’t understand the potential for rage.

The second camp in the Palace was to some degree represented by people such as Robert Fellowes, the Queen’s private secretary and brother-in-law to Diana, who was a thoroughly sensible man. I don’t know what he really thought of Diana – I think he saw both sides to her, loved the side he loved and shrugged at the other – but he was a professional and, as you sometimes find with well-bred upper-class types, a lot more shrewd and savvy than he let on. His deputy Robin Janvrin, who later succeeded him, was a Foreign Office official, also bright and completely au fait with where it was all heading.

At the suggestion of the Palace, I was to greet the body as it arrived from Paris. As I stood with sundry members of the Establishment out on the tarmac at RAF Northolt, I was acutely aware of the different camps. I had already decided in my own mind that this was a moment for the country to unite. There had to be love for Diana; respect for the Queen; a celebration of what a great country this is and how proud we were in having such a princess, and we had to show ourselves able to put on something spectacular in her memory to the lasting admiration of the world. I therefore thought my job was to protect the monarchy, channel the anger before it became rage, and generally have the whole business emerge in a positive and unifying way, rather than be a source of tension, division and bitterness.

I also really felt for the Queen herself, who was in a hellishly difficult situation. On the one hand she had been worried about the impact of Diana on the monarchy as an institution, and on the other of course she grieved for the mother of the grandchildren she completely adored; but she didn’t want to pretend to a view of Diana that was more conflicted than the public could accept, so her reluctance to step forward came about less through obedience to tradition and ‘the book’ – though undoubtedly that was part of it – and more through a sincere desire to be true to what she really felt. My upfront and visible filling of the vacuum would have made her uncomfortable, and certainly some of those around her somewhat disdained it. It also emphasised their general unease with me and what I represented.

I am not a great one for the Establishment. It’s probably at heart why I’m in the Labour Party and always will be. It’s not that I mind them particularly, and, over the days that followed Diana’s death, I did my level best to protect not just the Queen but also the court. I have to say, also, I found them polite, charming even, and never anything other than helpful people. So what I’m about to add may say more about me than about them. I always felt that they preferred political leaders of two types: either those who were of them – or at least fully subscribed to their general outlook – or the ‘authentic’ Labour people, the sort they used to read about, who spoke with an accent and who fitted their view of how such people should be. People like me were a bit nouveau riche, a bit arriviste, a bit confusing and therefore suspect. So I was also aware, during these days, that if it became too obvious I was trying to shape things, I could expect considerable blowback; and if I stumbled, I shouldn’t expect help getting up.

It was strange standing there at Northolt watching the plane arrive, waiting for the coffin to be brought out, the press pack penned in their hundreds behind the fence, the awkward chit-chat with the others. You have to be so careful at such events. You stand around talking. The mood is sombre. Someone says hello; the natural inclination is to smile. Someone snaps the picture. Before you know it, you look as if you are behaving inappropriately, as if the only thing you did was grin. Diana was not wrong about photographs. When Cherie and I were getting out of the car for a memorial service or some other solemn occasion, I would always say, as much to myself as to Cherie, you can’t afford to smile too broadly or laugh. Be on your guard.