




The BBC already wilting under the Trump faked-misspeak brouhaha is facing another deluge of righteous criticism with the publication of Dianarama by Andy Webb, a former BBC TV reporter. Uncovering the truth about Martin Bashir’s tactics in persuading Princess Diana to speak out on Panorama in 1995 has taken decades. It triggered her divorce from Prince Charles, stoked her paranoia and left her isolated, propelling her towards the events which would ultimately kill her in Paris two years later. Webb describes it as, “a story more lurid, more fantastical, than anything that happened at the Tudor court of Henry VIII”. An estimated 200 million people worldwide watched the programme.
Twenty-five years later, the BBC commissioned an investigation by Lord Dyson which found that Bashir had won Diana’s trust through “deceitful behaviour”, having seriously breached the BBC’s editorial rules. His inquiry concluded that the BBC’s initial internal investigation in 1996 had been “woefully ineffective” and that the corporation had “covered up” any wrongdoing.
Bashir first approached Earl Spencer, providing forged bank statements which suggested an associate was spying on his sister. He also, the book claims, told Diana that Prince Edward had Aids and that Tiggy Legge-Bourke, William and Harry’s former nanny, had been having an affair with Charles, had aborted his baby and would marry him when the Queen abdicated in the near future.
Sir Richard Eyre, the theatre director who was a BBC governor at the time of the initial investigation in 1996, told the author that the board “would have insisted on a full-scale inquiry” had they not been kept in the dark about Bashir’s deceit.
For Prince William, the BBC cover-up meant that his mother went to her death without ever knowing the truth. “She was failed not just by a rogue reporter but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions.”
Bashir, 19 January 1963 12.30pm London, has an ambitious Capricorn Sun in his 9th house of widescale communication with Mercury in Aquarius on his Midheaven. More notably he has two tricky T squares Saturn in his 10th (= transgressions will be punished) is in a hard-edged opposition to Mars in flamboyant Leo in a publicity-attracting square to a slippery Neptune and intense Moon in Scorpio in his 6th. There is a queasy feel about that one. Plus an overly confident, rules-don’t-apply-to-me Jupiter opposition Pluto in a square to a sugar sweet Venus. Using charm and duplicity to get his own way whatever it took.
His Jupiter falls in the BBC’s 10th house hinting that they saw him as a success bringer. Though his Saturn conjunct the BBC Mars, his Mars on the BBC IC and his Moon Neptune in Scorpio falling close to the BBC Mercury and Sun hints at a fractious interface with his Neptune working its smokescreening magic for a while.
His synastry with Diana was hardly inspiring with his Capricorn Sun conjunct her Saturn sparking off her feelings of guilt/unworthiness; with his Mars conjunct her Uranus for explosive revelations; and his Uranus conjunct her Mars Pluto in Virgo which would tap into her fears.
The Panorama was transmitted on 20 November 1995. If it was 8pm there was serendipitously the shiwpwrecking Scheat exactly conjunct the Midheaven and Procyon (wheel of fortune, rise and falls) on the Ascendant. There was a, intense and determined Scorpio Sun conjunct Pluto; with a wildly exuberant Jupiter Venus Mars in Sagittarius blocked by a square to Saturn in the legal/fair minded 9th. With a highly strung Uranus Neptune on the Descendant.
The over-the-top Jupiter Venus Mars fell in Diana’s 1st house as she attracted a stratospheric audience for an iconic interview; though Sun Pluto on the cusp of her 12th suggested behind-the-scenes-dirty-dealings.
As the Vatican and Richard Nixon’s Administration learned to their cost – it’s not only the original sin it’s also the cover up that does the damage.
































