Another voice

The last troubadour

Auberon Waugh

Athis week I have been under intense pressure to say something rude about Mr Nigel Dempster, the distinguished gossip columnist of the Daily Mail. So, I imagine, have most other journalists in the country, and it will be interesting to see which of them succumb. The pressure does not come from proprietors or 'international combines', as the Left would have us believe, but from those hidden manipulators of the press: wives, children, daily women, people who come to dinner, visiting French aristocrats, mysterious Rus- sian counts who stay the weekend and leave without paying their gambling debts ... in other words, from public opinion.

The Greatest Living Englishman, as Mr Dempster is almost universally known among his colleagues (in fact, as we all know, he was born in the Antipodes and snatched from a dingo's jaws to be educated at Sherborne), has Gone Too Far. While commentators have generally felt free to be as offensive as they like about Princess Anne and even to hint that Princess Margaret may not be quite so much fun as newspapers patriotically in- sisted she was for many years, the Princess of Wales remains sacred — at any rate for the time being.

And so she jolly well should, of course. If she had been paid modelling rates for the use of her photograph in the world's press, she would be in a position to buy Buck- ingham Palace with all its resident poof- tahs, Soviet agents and corgi dogs. She has appeared day after day in even the dullest newspaper in the land to illuminate our lives and give us hope for the future. In the two years we have known her — as long ago as December, 1980, 60 MPs had signed a mo- tion criticising the press for paying too much attention to her — she has kept more newspapers alive than Diana Dors, Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe ever did between them.

Gloomily, we decided she would almost certainly go mad before very long. Apart from the fact that she was plainly a nervous filly, and few young women could reasonably be expected to survive the strain of so much exposure, there was the metaphysical dread that in representing Bri- tain's Youth and Hope for the Future she was in fact representing two somewhat parlous entities.

But she does not seem to have gone mad, and until Mr Dempster's amazing revela- tions (or shameless inventions, depending upon one's attitude to the complicated creative process behind what is known in

the trade as a Dempster-truth) the fairytale seemed stuck in the lived-happily-ever-after groove. Now, according to Dempster, the Prince of Wales has become 'desperately unhappy'. The Princess has become a 'very wilful and spoiled girl'. 'Suddenly, getting this enormous power, having people curtsey and bow to her, doing everything she wants, she's become a fiend. She has become a little monster.'

So speaks the Greatest Living Englishman. The News of the World, which decided (probably quite rightly) that this was the most interesting thing which had happened all week, devoted most of its front page to denouncing him: "FIEN- DISH" DIANA What a Load of Rubbish,' it shouted across the top of five columns, with the inevitable photograph of our beloved Princess over the caption 'FIEN- DISH — or fabulous?'

A Buckingham Palace spokesman was credited with the statement that the Princess was 'very upset by these stupid comments', although other newspapers had been able to elicit only the comment 'Ridiculous'. Wasn'.t 'ridiculous' the word used by a Buckingham Palace spokesman to describe rumours of an attachment bet- ween Princess Anne and Lieutenant Mark Phillips? Alas, after that painful episode, nothing a Buckingham Palace spokesman can say will have any effect but to en- courage rumours to the contrary.

What, then, of Dempster? A few years ago, he announced that the Prince of Wales was secretly betrothed to Princess Marie Astrid of Luxembourg. For many years afterwards I stoutly maintained that this was indeed the case, that the two had almost certainly married in secret, that Lady Diana Spencer and her various predecessors in the Royal engagement stakes were no more than red herrings. Now that Dempster-truth has been replaced by the equally enjoyable Dempster-truth of the Fiendish Princess. To the great question of the day — whom should we believe, the Palace spokesman or the great journalist? — I would suggest the best answer is 'either, or neither, according to taste, but preferably both'. But perhaps this needs ex- planation.

The News of the World, in the course of its front-page comment on this burning issue, attributed two possible motives to the GLE before concluding that 'this must be the greatest howler of all time for the The final clues in the Treasure Hunt are to be found on page 57.

balding, 41-year-old columnist'. The first was, quite simply, that he had gone mad. `Marathon Jogger Nigel Dempster, viu," carries the dubious distinction of being /3". tain's top gossip columnist, seems to have run right round the bend.'

The second is not spelled out so clearly:

'Or would he have us believe that Solite" one in a High Place is stirring up trottb,lei for Princess Diana, the shy and lovely Pr who has won the hearts of millions?' Presumably this obscure Someone in High Place is not the Mail's proprietor' who could have no possible reason to 0i up trouble for the Princess of Wales. '." we are intended to wonder whether Venn ster could possibly have been fed t'' strange information by Princess Margarhett The unflattering suggestion is plairilYL-ta Princess Margaret (of whom Denly-erf recently wrote a biography) is so jealous of the Princess of Wales that she is whisPeringt this poison into Dempster's ear. B.11, nothing which Dempster has said or O., ten, so far as I know, suggests that this I; the case. It is all speculation and vile FlAce Street gossip. Dempster, in other wnrubs'e has himself been Dempstered. And t° the has of whether or not we shnii, believe it, I should make the same rePIY or before, that we should either believe itId not as we choose, but preferably we

do Weboth. shon

could not go on as before, ntenlY adoring the Princess of Wales. All relat.-A1 ships require incident and develoPinellVci- very least, Dempster has provided an 'es 5 dent — gossip columnist attacks he Fairytale, nation rises in anger. At best, e' has greatly enriched our Royal fa ntasY of perience by introducing this element creative doubt — half belief, half disbels — in the identity of the main charactersio* t the Princess of Wales a spoiled and petli, young lady, or is she the encharit'rkess natural person she seems? Is Prinche Margaret an evil, jealous woman or is 5 it right in what she says? Did she say anyway? If so, why? nr ati0- I would like, on the same basis, to pose various other explanations for Dell', ster's behaviour, always on the unelerst to ding that there is no reason whatever all. suppose he had any particular motive l a.nce The first is frustrated rage over the PrLux, of Wales's refusal to marry the Young,,,,sen embourgeoise whom Dempster hadthe for him. The second is that he is ift cess throes of a courtly love for Prin sed Margaret (whom he believes to be `obsess by bi-sexuals') and is merely doing whams supposes will please her, though she en, never given him the slightest encourager° fer. This last is the explanation I Pr,er or Everybody in public lives, to a grenti:e .e. lesser extent, in a world of make-be,1;ss Dempster, with his lonely, pure, h(Voself passion for the Queen's sister, has , and melted into the mists of legend, fan the make-believe. He is the last 0.1_„1.d. troubadours. Long may his songs be Oa