Prince Harry ‘wouldn’t have married Meghan Markle ’ if Princess Diana was alive, The Queen’s former aide has sensationally claimed.
In an exclusive interview with GB News, The Queen ’s former Press Secretary Dickie Arbiter also hit out at the BBC, as pressure grows on them to apologise for the Martin Bashir scandal.
Speaking to Breakfast with Anne Diamond and Stephen Dixon this morning Dickie stated: “ If Princess Diana was alive today we would not be going through this.
“She had her head screwed on the right way. She was very practical and he was very sensible.
“I’m going to stick my neck out here and I doubt Harry would have married Mehgan because Harry wouldn't have been in the state he was in as a result of his mother's death, he would have taken a completely different course and he would still be here working in support of the Queen.”
He also then went on to comment about Prince Harry's recent dispute over security arrangements when he's in the UK, saying: “The police forces and the security forces are not for hire and if he wants private security, then hire private security, but the Police force, security services, whatever, MI5, whatever you want to name them are not for personal hire."
He continued, saying that: "And I would think that the answer would be - and I'd be very surprised if they go with the Duke of Sussex, our forces are not for hire.
"Our military are not for hire. Our military are there defend us not to protect individuals.”
During the interview, the ex press secretary commented on the BBC's 'shameful' apology over the infamous Panorama interview with Princess Diana.
He said: “It’s shameful that it has taken the BBC 27 years to give an apology to Tiggy Legge-Bourke and the fact that she actually had to go to court for it and expose some of her personal details, the whole thing is shameful.
“It almost permeates - there's an arrogance on the higher levels of the BBC thinking that they could actually get away with it. And quite frankly, I think questions - Lord Dyson did ask a lot of questions in his investigation, but questions still need to be answered by the very people who were on the watch at the time."
“What sort of papers did he have we - know that they were all fake, were they fakes from graphic artists, or were they all faked up from legitimate documents?," he continued.
“We still need to find out. But the whole sorry episode is shameful.”
Arbiter added that he hopes the Panorama interview is never aired again, saying he feels, "They're absolutely right in saying it shouldn't be aired again, and I'm not sure that Diana would have said what she did say in the interview, had she not been presented with certain papers, allegations that her staff were spying on her, allegations that secret service was spying on her."
Speaking about how analogue was very easy to hack and was used to find secrets, he claimed that staff were 'being paid with off large amounts of money to spy on her', adding it was 'absolute nonsense'.
He continued: “I don't think we would have had what we did have in the interview, and I wonder whether we would have had the interview at all.
“She was very reluctant to take people into her confidence. I know many times, she would ask for advice on something, I would say either yes, it's a good idea or no, it's a pretty rotten idea.
“And if it was a rotten idea, she wouldn't talk to me for two weeks. And after a couple of weeks, she phoned up and said would I do XYZ and we were back on a roll again.
“She did ask for advice, but on this particular incident, she didn't ask for advice.”
On calls for criminal prosecutions, he said: “I think it's a very good question. I'm not sure who's committing the crime.
“The documents that were faked up, were they done entirely by the graphic artists…or were they documents legitimate, documents faked up to make it look as if Diana’s staff were paid to spy on her that needs to be gone into
“Unfortunately, our police force today seem incapable of investigating properly.
“So who's going to do the investigation remains to be seen…it's not gone away yet and the BBC needs still to answer a lot of questions."
When asked if Martin Bashir needs to be questioned for his actions, Mr Arbiter simply said: “Absolutely, he needs to be questioned…he was very well to do the interview, he was very well subsequently, he was very well when he was given another job by Tony Hall as religious affairs correspondent, but all of a sudden this comes crashing down and he's now unwell.
"He does need to be questioned.”
