The people’s monarchy

AS THE millions of viewers around the world know, the funeral was a fine and moving event, made even finer and more moving by a superb speech by Diana's brother, Earl Spencer. Beyond the appropriate expressions of familial feeling, Earl Spencer showed good judgment both in his choice of targets for criticism and in the firepower he deployed against them: a moderate but pointed attack on the royal family for its dealings with his sister and the way in which, left alone, it might bring up Princes William and Harry; a heavy barrage against those in the media who he said were “at the opposite end of the moral spectrum”. If only other commentators had shown as good a sense of moment and of balance. For the struggle, still not over, by newspapers and broadcasters to fill acres of newsprint and hours of programming has led to the world's greatest ever glut of hyperbole and humbug.