Britain | Palace shenanigans

Royal flush

Rum doings in high places

|

CROOK, chump, scoundrel or hero? The events surrounding the collapsed trial of Princess Diana's butler Paul Burrell are as baffling as they are gripping. Why did he stash away a weird collection of several hundred of her belongings after she died? Why did the police claim falsely that he was planning to sell them? Why did the queen suddenly, and very belatedly, tell the police that the souvenir snatch had been with her knowledge? Most bizarre of all, did the queen really tell Mr Burrell in the course of a three-hour tête-à-tête after the princess's death, as he claims, that “there are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge”?

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Royal flush”

By George!

From the November 9th 2002 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

British MPs vote in favour of assisted dying

A monumental social reform is closer to being realised

This illustration depicts Keith Starmer and Rachel Reeves set against a background of UK, US, and Chinese flag elements.

The slow death of a Labour buzzword

And what that says about Britain’s place in the world



Britain’s Supreme Court considers what a woman is

At last. Britons had been wondering what those 34m people who are not men might be

Can potholes fuel populism?

A new paper looks at one explanation for the rise of Reform UK

Are British voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks? 

How the idea of false consciousness conquered the governing party