WE'RE LETTING HER TEASE US

Robert Hardman explains why Diana, Princess of Wales

will not become Lady Diana Fayed, and why, if she did, the royal family would be the main loser

IT CANNOT be long before Elizabeth Emanuel receives a call from a Fleet Street fashion desk asking her what 'That Dress' should look like second time around. In the space of a week, Diana, Princess of Wales has been transformed from a lonely heart to a passionate Juliet, defying the establish- ment and preparing to elope with her Egyptian Romeo.

What do we have to go on? A handful of blurred snaps indicating an affection for Dodi Fayed supported by a plethora of less-blurred snaps showing that the Princess and her friends do what millions of other people do on holiday swim and laugh while scantily dressed.

We know that the Princess finds August, like Christmas, a difficult time. It is a period when families do things together but, customarily, her sons are with the royal family. A little escapism, such as this week's trip to a psychic, is understandable. And yet, how many other holiday romances — if this friendship has even reached that stage — would prompt quite such a hurried clang of wedding bells? It is worth going back to last Octo- ber, when the Princess was last splashed across the front pages in a smudged embrace. The Sun had acquired a video, filmed through French windows at High- grove, showing the Princess in her under- wear cavorting with James Hewitt and enjoying a pillow fight.

The whole thing eventually turned out to be a hoax, but the Princess was quite happy to let the speculation gain momentum. Had she been filmed by MI5? Had the tape been kept as ammunition by 'the enemy' to be used in the event of a divorce? ITN was duped into running the thing on News at Ten. Only when the video was revealed as a spoof for a comedy programme did the Princess finally bother to enter the fray. `The Princess of Wales authorised me to tell you that she does not recognise either herself or Major James Hewitt in these photographs,' a Kensington Palace spokes- man said.

She could have nipped the whole thing in the bud but, instead, decided to wait until the hoax had run its course and allow the the Sun to look ridiculous. In doing so, she ensured that editors would think very hard before buying up any video scoops in future.

No one believes that the latest round of fuzzy holiday snaps are a hoax, but it would not be surprising if the Princess was employing the same tactics again. If there is nothing to the Fayed affair, she might have quashed the romance rumours in the usual 'friends said last night' way. Alterna- tively, she may have let the stories get ludi- crously out of control only to enjoy the moment when the dull truth finally emerges. Fleet Street, looking ridiculous once again, might then be less hysterical when true love really does come along.

Such disclosures, whether true or distorted, can have a corrosive effect on a fledgling romance. In the case of Dodi Fayed, however, there are the possible sins of the father to be considered, too. This autumn might have seen one of the most eagerly awaited libel actions in recent years. Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi's father, had promised a Vesuvian response to a lengthy profile of him published in the September 1995 edition of the American magazine, Vanity Fair. The author had set out to see if there was a different Al Fayed from the ogre portrayed in the British media. The subsequent piece turned out to be less than flattering and included some startling allegations about Mr Al Fayed's personal habits and business methods.

The Fayed lawyers instigated libel pro- ceedings on several counts and the case had been due to come to court in October. Earlier this month, a few days after the Princess had returned from her holiday with Mr Fayed senior, both sides went before the judge. So vast was the quantity of evidence presented by the defendants that the judge has decided to postpone the court case until September 1998 in order to allow Mr Al Fayed's team extra time to digest it.

Should Mr Al Fayed press ahead with his case, there is the prospect of Vanity Fair's hefty dossier tumbling out in public. And since the magazine is in no mood to settle, Mr Al Fayed's other option would be to drop the action, thus prompting a retro- spective media feast on the original allega- tions. Either way, if the Princess was still attached to Mr Fayed junior, she would find herself tarred by association.

That is precisely why the royal family, contrary to some reports, is not cheering on the Princess towards marriage. A com- mon suggestion is that were the Princess to become Lady Diana Fayed, she would lose her gloss and her appeal, those weapons so often used by the media as a stick with which to beat the royal family. The people, so the theory goes, would surely feel a little betrayed, much as America took against Jackie Kennedy's marriage to Aristotle Onassis. At the same time, the Prince of Wales would find it easier to elevate Mrs Parker Bowles into the nation's affections.

The Palace, however, knows from experi- ence that what is bad for the Princess's image is not good for the royal family's. Indeed, there is a distinct possibility that the main loser in any union between the Princess and Mr Fayed would be the Prince of Wales. The establishment view might be: `She really has flipped if she wants to marry into that family.' The populist view is more likely to be: 'Poor girl. She gets dumped by that husband of hers and ends up having to seek happiness with this bloke.' If such a marriage ended in disaster, Dodi Fayed would receive plenty of public opprobrium, but it would still be perceived as the Prince's fault for reducing her to such a desperate quest for happiness.

One needs only to look back on recent errors of judgment by the Princess to see that she is blessed with a spectacular talent for rehabilitation. After her friendship with Will Carling led to the collapse of the rugby star's marriage, her detractors thought that she must have lost her popu- lar appeal. The nation, surely, would not tolerate a marriage-wrecker. In the event, the tabloid response was a mild reprimand accompanied by understanding concessions that the Princess had been driven to this course of action by the misery of her situa- tion. After her Panorama diatribe, her detractors, once again, thought that she had blown it. The tide of sympathy, howev- er, was with her.

The following year, many believed that the public would lose its enthusiasm when it turned out that the Princess had taken up a weird new hobby — watching other peo- ple's hospital operations. Even her extraor- dinary decision, four months later, to abandon her links with 100 charities was greeted with the same sentiment: 'Poor thing. She must have been through hell.'

Of course, it is far from certain that the Princess is actually looking for marriage, or that she would regard Dodi Fayed as suit- able stepfather material for the sons she worships, despite the best efforts of her would-be father-in-law. Fayed pere has been instrumental in matchmaking his son with the Princess, and is said to be cock-a- hoop at the idea of being the step-grandfa- ther of the future king of a country which has deemed him unfit for a passport.

Mohamed Al Fayed took a dim view of his son's brief marriage to an American model, Suzanne Gregard, and was pre- pared to interfere. 'He did not approve and so he started taking away the toys,' said one acquaintance, recalling Mohamed's edict that Dodi's polo equipment should be sold as a sign of his displeasure. If this friend- ship led to marriage, it is safe to say that the bride and groom could have all the toys they wanted. But a father-in-law who pays Now remind me again — who are we on first-name terms with?' backhanders to politicians and likes to film confidential conversations with friends is obviously a man with a craving for control.

The enduring quote from the Princess's Panorama interview was: 'There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.' All the signs are that wedded life with Dodi Fayed might be a bit of a threesome too.

Robert Hardman is a correspondent and columnist for the Daily Telegraph.