LETTER: 'Great communicator' fights for sanity and has the Royal Household on toast

From Mr Geoffrey Lawson

Sir: The Princess of Wales's Panorama interview revealed much by what she rather carefully didn't say: in particular, the extent to which the advisers to the Royal Household are affected by certain petty jealousy, are locked in the past, frown on novelty and seek control.

Here we have a perfectly sane young woman with a great deal to offer trying to modernise and humanise the institution of the monarchy and evidently driven into enmity with the Household. There is a whiff of Henry II's "who will rid me of this turbulent priest" about the efforts to discredit and marginalise the Princess with suggestions of her mental instability emanating from various "advisers" and people allegedly "in the know".

I support the Princess and the devil take the other lobby. Diana may not have a university education but this is not a prerequisite for wisdom and shrewdness and much else in this life.

I found more intellectual stimulation and thoughtfulness in the Princess's interview than in the ramblings of her husband with Mr Dimbleby a year ago, wherein lay a singular lack of wisdom.

Yours sincerely,

Geoffrey Lawson

London, SW17

21 November