[Socialism Today, No 22, October 1997, p. 13-17]
The death of Princess Diana on 31 August triggered off emotional and unprecedented scenes of public grief and soul-searching throughout Britain and beyond. It was accompanied by the coming out onto the streets of London in particular, but in other cities also, of hundreds of thousands and even millions of people. In the space of the week following her death, lightening changes in consciousness took place.
What is the significance of these events? Why did Diana, a dissident but integral part of the monarchy, strike such a chord? Why did an estimated 300,000 people sign the books of condolences for someone they had never met, and who inhabited an entirely different world to theirs? Was this just another case of mass hysteria, whipped up by the press, an emotional blip soon to disappear? Or were these events of deeper significance – an occasion when British society held up a mirror to itself and recoiled at the ugly realities of class society which were revealed?
One hundred and forty years ago the famous reactionary Liberal, Walter Bagehot, commented on the monarchy: “The use of the Queen, in a dignified capacity, is incalculable … our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it, you cannot reverence it. When there is a select committee on the Queen, the charm of royalty will be gone. Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic. We must not bring the Queen into the combat of politics, or she will cease to be reverenced by all combatants; she will become one combatant among many”. (The English Constitution).
The astonishing public reaction to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and her companion Dodi Fayed reveals the complete transformation of Britain, not just compared to Bagehot’s times, but over the last twenty years. The deference of the British to the upper circles of society, including the monarchy, has been shattered beyond recall. Indeed, in the astonishing week which followed Diana’s death the fate of the monarchy as an institution, and not just the Windsors, seemed to hang by a thread. Above all reaction to her death revealed the underlying explosive tensions in British society which came to the surface for a time.
Paradoxically, the death of someone emanating from within the charmed circle of the elite itself proved to be a catalyst for mass anger against all the hallowed institutions of British capitalism. Last year 55% in a MORI poll said that the country would be better or no worse off without a monarchy. On the day of Diana’s death, mixed in with public grief was complete hostility to the press and the electronic media. People outside Kensington Palace declared to reporters: ‘You killed her’. Moreover Demos, a pro-Blair think tank, also revealed that only one in ten of the population had any real faith in parliament. The Sunday Times (21 September) also revealed that the TV programme Coronation Street is more popular amongst the young than the royal family. The appeal of Diana to sections of society who otherwise were repelled by the monarchy was mainly due to her seeming sympathy for the ‘underdog’. Her well-advertised visits to the homeless accompanied by her sons; her campaign on land mines, condemned by the Tories; and her reaching out to those such as lepers, endeared her to a broad swathe of the population.
Trained as a nursery nurse, even Diana’s body language in embracing children, or the disabled, contrasted favourably with the dysfunctional, non-tactile ruling family, the Windsors. This impression was reinforced in the days which followed her death, as the Queen and the rest of the royal family remained in their Balmoral fastness, while huge crowds queued outside Kensington Palace. The people took over the royal parks. Contrary to the impression given by the media, these crowds were not sombre mourners. Indeed a boisterous mood predominated, with the open sale of hot dogs and beer. The mass occupation of the royal parks, as well as The Mall, has prompted the suggestion that these should be completely pedestrianised, in effect turned over to the ‘people’.
The mass mourning at St James Palace and elsewhere throughout Britain spoke eloquently against the legacy of almost 20 years of Thatcherite capitalism. Thatcher declared that there was ‘no such thing as society’. The decay of British capitalism and her policies have resulted in an alienated and atomised society. As The Observer correctly commented, “Diana met the need in a lonely, secular society, for solidarity and warmth – and for secular saints … The past 20 years of rising inequality, decaying public institutions, the celebration of private activity and private free markets has created a new society that is more individualistic, more insecure, less anchored in its values and more alone”. A seemingly vulnerable woman appealed to millions, particularly women, who also feel vulnerable. The events lifted people out of their daily routine.
Leon Trotsky observed a similar phenomenon at the outbreak of the first world war in 1914. Surprised by the almost carnival atmosphere of workers in Vienna who were marching towards the slaughter at the front, Trotsky explained that it was because the mobilisation had uprooted the masses from their daily routine and drudgery and held out the prospect of change. There was an element of this in the public outpourings following the death of Diana. At bottom, as even bourgeois commentators have remarked, Diana-worship was basically anti-royal and anti-establishment. The Observer pointedly remarked, “Diana would not be thought good if the causes she had espoused had been privatisation, Workfare, and the charity ball”. The fact that Diana evoked this response is both a reflection of the underlying realities of British society, and at the same time an annihilating condemnation of the official leadership of the labour movement. In the past it was the labour movement which acted as a pole of attraction for the homeless, dispossessed, unemployed, victims of brutal capitalism. But the embrace of the free market system by Blair and co has left millions leaderless, without real heroes and with their hopes transferred from the labour movement to beneficent figures from the ruling circles like Diana.
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One of the most striking features of the events was the rapid changes in consciousness over the week following Diana’s death. The day after she died there was complete hostility to the press and a growing criticism and even hatred of the Windsors. This was all the more remarkable because most of those who gathered outside Kensington Palace were from ‘Middle Britain’ and overwhelmingly women. This is also a reflection of the ‘feminisation’ of society over the last two decades. More inclined to demonstrate their feelings, women’s attraction to the figure of Diana grew in inverse proportion to the growing hostility to the figure of Prince Charles. This is also an expression of the fact that even bourgeois women in class society face oppression and discrimination, not in a social and economic sense as with the working class, but personally and psychologically.
Seeking to deflect the growing hostility to itself, the media directed its fire against the monarchy. TV and radio reports as well as the press stoked up public interest in the scenes of mass mourning at Kensington Palace. It reflected the growing antagonisms towards the Windsors and at the same time built up this mood. This culminated in the editorial barrages of The Sun and The Mirror on the Wednesday following Diana’s death. In these days the growing public mood against the monarchy was mixed in with the idea of ‘skipping over’ Charles and passing straight to the reign of his son William.
Despite all denials to the contrary, the court camarilla was divided as to how they should react to the death of Diana. The Queen clearly refused to contemplate a public or state funeral, while others were urging a more open ‘liberal’ line. But jolted by the barrage from the press, the royal entourage terminated their stay in Balmoral and descended on London on Thursday. Just how out of touch they were was shown by the comments of Prince Philip on his walkabout outside Kensington Palace when he asked a member of the crowd, ‘Have you been waiting long?’ The average waiting time in the queues was over eleven hours.
The anti-Windsor, anti-monarchist wave appeared to recede somewhat following the Queen’s appearance and national broadcast on Friday. But the funeral and the devastating oration of Earl Spencer put the Windsors once more in the dock. These events demonstrated both radical and reactionary features. The underlying radical mood was evident. But there has been little discussion, particularly as it involves the media itself, on the all-pervasive reactionary role which is now played by the press, the TV and radio in helping to mould public opinion.
As never before, we saw the colossal power which has been concentrated in the hands of a few press proprietors like Murdoch or Lord Rothermere. At the BBC John Birt is attempting to manipulate and trivialise news programmes and the same process exists in the ITV, cable and satellite companies. There is a determined attempt to convert the news into a branch of entertainment, as in the USA. This huge undemocratic power is an important weapon in bolstering the power of the capitalists in the modern era.
The hounding of Diana is well documented, but what about the persecution, the lies and intimidation meted out to labour movement figures who stand up for ordinary, working-class people and challenge the power of capital? Witness the character assassination of the leaders of Liverpool city council in the 1980s. Look at the way Militant (now the Socialist Party) was linked to terrorism, how Tony Benn was ‘put on the psychiatrist’s couch’ for daring to challenge for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party, or how Arthur Scargill and the miners were maligned and lied about during the heroic miners’ strike of 1984-85.
‘Crocodile tears, crocodile teeth’. Those press moguls who now repent their past misdeeds resist even the most minimal measures to curb their powers to intrude into the personal lives and to assassinate the characters of those who provoke their ire. And they are bolstered by Tony Blair, who has proved to be the most conservative bulwark of the establishment throughout the Diana affair. The self-professed apostle of ‘modernisation’ was the most steadfast defender of a feudal relic. His stock has undoubtedly risen in the short term, as he appeared to capture the public mood with his sanctification of Diana as the ‘people’s princess’. He also, it seems, advised the royal family to come out of their Balmoral bunker and to make contact with their ‘subjects’.
He appears sure-footed compared to the hapless Tory leader William Hague, whose party, in the days leading up to her death, attacked Diana for her anti-land mines policy. He compounded his problems by attacking Blair over his role in advising the monarchy during these events. Consequently Blair’s support and that of the Labour Party has risen to an all-time high. Eighty-three percent of the population believe that he is doing a good job, while 60% now say they would support Labour compared to 44% at the general election a mere four and a half months ago.
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The period of illusions continues. Blair’s credo of ‘modernisation’, and the moral effluvia which goes with it, seems to chime with the present public mood. But for how long? There are some parallels between the mood that gripped Britain in the weeks that followed Diana’s death and the public grieving over the Dunblane massacre or the White March in Belgium following the paedophile murders of a number of children. In all of these events there is a strong moral theme, a rejection of the ugliness, the greed and the violence of modern capitalist society. There is a yearning for tolerance, a more humane and equitable society. There is an identification with those figures who seem to stand for these ‘values’. However, this morality has nothing in common with the Tories ill-fated ‘Back to Basics’. It is ‘humanistic’ in the broad sense of the term and is a feeling which socialists can sympathise and identify with.
In the aftermath of the Diana events the capitalist media has predictably taken a sideswipe at the left, who allegedly show a lack of feeling, ‘and even inhumanity’ towards the death of Diana. On the contrary, Marxism is the most humane philosophy. It is saturated with the spirit of optimism and faith in humanity’s destiny and role. Marx himself echoed the words of Heine [actually Terence]: ‘Nothing which is human is foreign to me’. It is possible to feel sympathy for the death of any human being (especially in horrific circumstances), even one from a privileged background, and the personal loss suffered by her family and sons.
At the same time, this does not mean that we close our eyes to the limitations of the role of one individual or the social role which she, her circle and the monarchy play. She came from the Spencer family, linked for over four centuries with the British monarchy. In the 15th century they were sheep barons, the equivalent of oil magnates today. The gulf between her daily existence and those she sympathised with on the streets, the disabled, and the terminally sick, is indicated by the fact that days before she met her death Dodi Fayed had bought her a £130,000 wedding ring. Earl Spencer, who thundered against the Windsors in Westminster Abbey, lives in South Africa in a mansion reported to cost £10,000 rent per week.
Nevertheless, it can be argued, despite her wealth and privileged position, Diana tried to help the less fortunate. But good works and charity offer only limited respite to very few victims of class society. It is like taking an eggcup to empty an ocean. Only a root and branch transformation of society, the breaking of the stranglehold of private ownership of the means of production, science, labour and the organisation of technique, can lay the foundations for abolishing want and privation for ever. Once a power arises which can show a way out of the blind alley, including the moral bankruptcy of capitalist society, it will mobilise all the most vital forces who look towards the future. Even sections of the ruling class, particularly its younger layers, recognising that capitalism is a colossal impediment to human progress, could come over to those who are trying to transform society. The only force which is capable of affecting such a change, however, is the working class, in Britain, in Europe and throughout the world.
The labour movement should be opposed to any impediment or institution which prevents the working class from establishing a clear consciousness of its own power and strength. From a basic democratic point of view, never mind the interests of the working class and socialism, the feudal institutions of the monarchy along with the House of Lords and all its trappings, should be abolished and put into a museum of antiquities.
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The events around the death of Diana have severely shaken the monarchy. This feudal remnant has been retained not in order to delight tourists with memories of ‘Merrie England’. Bagehot was quite explicit: “The English monarchy strengthens our government with the strength of religion … the mass of the English people … agree with the oath of allegiance; they say it is their duty to obey the ‘Queen’, and they have but hazy notions as to obeying laws without a queen … The functions of the English royalty are for the most part latent, it fulfils this condition … the nation is divided into parties but the Crown is of no party”. In other words the monarchy, in Britain’s unwritten constitution, possesses latent powers which the ruling class have always considered they will use in the event of an ‘emergency’.
Just what kind of ‘emergency’ was shown in Australia in 1975 in the well-known example of the replacement of the democratically elected Labour government of Gough Whitlam by the Queen’s appointee, the governor-general. This incident fuelled the demand for a republic in Australia. The British ruling class has not yet been called upon to play the card of the monarchy in a similar situation in Britain. It is true that the monarchy today is a damaged weapon. But always taking the long view of history, the ruling class will not easily give it up. Its more far-sighted representatives can envisage a huge collision between the classes leading to a revitalised and socialist labour movement. This in turn can result in the future election of a socialist government. Faced with a threat to their power, prestige and income they would not, as history attests, hesitate to use extra-parliamentary methods to overthrow such a government.
This is why, in the aftermath of the death of Diana, there is a concerted campaign to refurbish the image of the monarchy. Voices are raised against Prince Charles becoming Charles III. There is pressure for the young William to ascend the throne. But the ability of the British ruling class and its institutions, the monarchy and the church, to bend with the wind should never be underestimated. There is a concerted attempt now to ‘humanise’ Prince Charles. Whether or not this succeeds or William ascends the throne early is of no major consequence for the labour movement, or for socialists. The monarchy should be abolished.
The events around the death of Diana are an important reflection of the mood of Britain. The absence of a mass socialist alternative means that in desperation, the disenfranchised, the dispossessed and voiceless, can turn temporarily to all kinds of accidental figures and movements for a solution to their problems. But from a medium and long-term point of view their effects will be ephemeral. The massive outbreak of public grief at the time of the White March in Belgium a year ago did not prevent bitter class conflict from breaking out, as the recent struggles of the Clabecq and Renault workers have demonstrated. So too in Britain; the growing gulf between the classes, which was the backcloth to the events surrounding the death of Diana, will break out in an explosive form in Britain. Blair cannot maintain himself by moral platitudes, by appeals for ‘modernisation’ or by shuffling off every difficult social issue into myriad government committees. Big movements are being prepared in education and against the crisis in the health service. There will also be a clamour for those whose wages have been driven down for years for compensation in the next period. The class struggle will break out with redoubled force. Solidarity and socialism will come back onto the agenda. This will lay the basis for a revitalised and powerful labour movement which can, unlike radical figures from the establishment or the monarchy, offer a perspective and programme for real change.
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