10 years after her death, the Diana debate rages on

Ten years have passed since Diana, Princess of Wales, died and Britain erupted in a febrile convulsion of grief and anger, but in some ways you would hardly know it.

Ten years have passed since Diana, Princess of Wales, died and Britain erupted in a febrile convulsion of grief and anger, but in some ways you would hardly know it.

The tabloids are still spinning breathless tales of conspiracy, cover-up and royal squabbling. 8220;Document that proves Diana was pregnant,8221; said a recent headline in The Daily Express, nicknamed The Diana Express because of its enthusiasm for even the most tenuous news about the princess.

8220;Charles hijacks Diana memorial,8221; The Mail reported on Sunday, in an article about fights over the guest list at the anniversary service, which is set for Friday at noon.

The royal family is still fretting and bickering, still seemingly incapable of getting it right. After being attacked for deciding to attend Diana8217;s service, Prince Charles8217;s second wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, abruptly announced last weekend that she would stay away after all so as not to 8220;divert attention from the purpose of the occasion8221;.

And people are still arguing, as they did in that odd, volatile time a decade ago, over Diana8217;s significance, in life and in death. Was she a naive innocent or a sophisticated schemer? Was Diana an extraordinary woman whose 8220;lifetime of service touched the lives of millions,8221; or a 8220;devious moron8221; desperate for attention, as the feminist author Germaine Greer recently described her?

Also, did her talent for drawing people into the dysfunctional minutiae of her life, and the un-British paroxysms of anguish that followed her death, change the psyche of a nation known for making repression a virtue?

And, it has been 10 years. Why do we even care?

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Patrick Jephson, Diana8217;s private secretary from 1990 to 1996, said that she still had the ability to capture and to polarise a crowd. 8220;Either you are a Diana fan or a Diana skeptic,8221; he said in an interview. 8220;

People tend to see her in these rather monochrome shades, whereas in fact, of course, she was a complex figure. People tend to overlook that she was a serious person in a serious role doing a serious job in her life.8221;

Diana8217;s death, in a car accident in a Paris tunnel, is hardly the raw wound it was 10 years ago. People are not walking through London openly sobbing, depositing vast seas of flowers at the royal palaces or calling for Queen Elizabeth to show her humanity by, say, collapsing with grief in public. Life is going on much the way it did before.

Newspapers and magazines, well aware that articles about Diana always bolster sales, no matter what they say, are awash in commemorative sections and analyses of What it all means. On television, a stream of films starring Diana look-alikes has revisited various well-trod aspects of Diana8217;s life. An audio-visual exhibit at Kensington Palace, where she lived, is devoted to 8220;Diana: A Princess remembered.8221;

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So did Diana transform the British psyche? Sarah Adlington, 37, said Diana might well have changed the monarchy for the better, because 8220;she brought them down to earth8221;. Her husband said that while many non-royal Britons were undoubtedly more openly emotional than they used to be, the new candour did not extend to him. 8220;I8217;m a Yorkshireman,8221; he said. 8220;They don8217;t come any less emotional than that.8221;

Sitting near the fountain with her husband and another couple, Jan Gaskell complained that 8220;a lot of people are making a lot of money out of Diana8221;. She added, 8220;My personal opinion is that she should be left in peace.8221;