THE Queen’s former Press Secretary has claimed Harry wouldn’t have married Meghan if Diana was still alive.

In an exclusive interview with GB News, 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 (Friday) Dickie said: “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.”

Commenting on Prince Harry’s dispute over security arrangements when he’s in the UK, he said: “We need a robust announcement today.

“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.

“They are there to protect on the advice of Cobra, on the advice of the Home Office and advice from the security services. 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.

“It’s like the military, our military are not for hire. Our military are there defend us not to protect individuals.”

Commenting on the BBC’s 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.

“Director General John Birt, the head of news, Tony Hall, they still need to come up with an answer to how Martin Bashir, a second grade reporter on Panorama managed to get such an exclusive interview. What did he provide to Diana?

“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?

“We still need to find out. But the whole sorry episode is shameful.”

Arbiter also said he felt it was right the now infamous Panorama interview was never aired again.
He added: “Well, I think 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.

“Many times apartments eight and nine were swept by the Security Service to find no bugs whatsoever.

“What we were living in in those days was not digital telephone, mobile phones, but analogue and analogue was very easy to hack.

“All you need is a is a scanner and some enterprising guys, as we heard with Camillagate and Squidgygate kit, so it was easy to do, but had Diana not been presented with these papers, that staff were being paid with off large amounts of money to spy on her – absolute nonsense.

“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.

“What is quite interesting at the time…is the person they actually kept out of the loop all together was the chairman of the BBC, Duke Hussey. Why? Because his wife was a lady waiting to the Queen, which is why he was kept on the sidelines.

“Steve Hewlett, who unfortunately died in 2017. He’s not here to answer the questions. But whenever you asked a question, he actually on a number of occasions, I questioned him about it and I was subjected to verbal bullying, so there’s going to be a lot of questions to be asked, a lot of answers needed. And I mean, Lord Spencer is on the right track.”

Asked if Martin Bashir needs to be questioned, Mr Arbiter 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.”