Even princesses are mortal

Here are some facts. A Mer­cedes trav­el­ling at well over the speed limit through an under­pass. A driver who had been con­sum­ing alco­hol. A woman not wear­ing a seatbelt.

Acci­dents are tra­gic, of course they are — and par­tic­u­larly an acci­dent where a mother is taken from her two young chil­dren. But as this ridicu­lous inquest into the deaths of Diana, Prin­cess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed opens, I can’t help think­ing that it’s time for us all to Get Over It — and yes, I’m talk­ing to you, Mohamed Al Fayed and Paul Burrell.

There is simply no con­spir­acy here, just a road acci­dent. They hap­pen every day, sadly, and they show no respect for class or status. Diana may have been a ‘fairytale prin­cess’ and Dodi a fab­ulously wealthy mem­ber of the inter­na­tional jet­set, but when a speed­ing vehicle crashes into the wall of a tun­nel they are shown to be as human as the rest of us.

“But,” say the con­spir­acy the­or­ists, “Diana gave Paul Bur­rell a let­ter in which she names the per­son she believed was plot­ting to kill her. That’s got to be proof, surely?”

I don’t know what Paul Burrell’s game is — in fact, I doubt whether he has a game­plan because he is as immersed in the warped and con­vo­luted royal soap opera as Diana ever was. In therapy-speak, they call them dys­func­tional fam­il­ies, you know. The gold­fish bowl in which the Wind­sors have lived for years is pat­ently not the real world, and sadly Diana seemed more sus­cept­ible to this det­ri­mental atmo­sphere than most. Paul Bur­rell has not only unnerv­ingly inher­ited his employer’s man­ner­isms (head cocked to one side, sin­cere gaze, earn­est tone) but also her beliefs — everything is skulldug­gery, everything is conspiracy.

I know it’s been said before, but assemble the Wind­sors in an inner-city coun­cil block for a week, liv­ing on bene­fits, and they would prob­ably soon for­get whether Prince Philip hates Prince Edward, what Charles gets up to in private or who Prince Harry’s real father might be.

The inquest, then, is just the latest unbe­liev­able epis­ode in Wind­sor Won­der­land — a world that’s not quite real, not quite con­nec­ted with real­ity. It was an acci­dent. We’re all mor­tal. Get over it.