Earl of great price
Press & privacy , Issue 1684 “HIS Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss,” was the response from Buckingham Palace to Earl Spencer’s shocking claim in his new book that the King “went nuts” in a phone call shortly after his ex-wife Diana’s death and told her brother “we’ll forget her soon enough”.

And Earl S does have form for differently coloured memories, as he proved at the time: when the Eye pointed out in September 1997 that his campaigning for a privacy law both before and after the death of his sister was somewhat hypocritical given his own negotiations with Hello! magazine for an “at home” photoshoot and feature with his family (the one with his first wife: he’s had three more since) he indignantly denied the entire story.

“I think it a pity that my sincere wish to help this country’s fight against the culture of intrusion should be sneered at so dishonestly in Private Eye,” he intoned.

Whereupon we published extracts from the protracted correspondence he and Victoria Spencer had entered into with the magazine’s “fixer” the Marquesa de Varela during 1995 and 1996 in which they demanded at least £250,000 on the grounds that “Charles is in the middle of fighting the British government in Strasbourg for a privacy law in Britain, which is why the fee must be so substantial”, and Spencer himself offered “a few of my family (my mother, for instance)” to be photographed exclusively to promote the restoration of his country home, Althorp House.

Still, it’s good to see from all the details in last week’s Daily Mail serialisation of his book that his valiant fight against intrusive reporting goes on!