Don't fear fallout from Diana's letter bombs

The Mirror has come in for some predictable stick for revealing that Diana, Princess of Wales, thought it was her husband who was out to do away with her; but I’m not sure what harm it has done. It tells us much more about Diana’s troubled state of mind than it does about any murderous intentions of Charles, the idea of which even the Mirror agrees is "utterly preposterous".

I don’t quite buy editor Piers Morgan’s claim that it was OK to name Charles because it was bound to become public knowledge now that Diana’s letter has been handed over to the inquest into her death. The coroner - indeed, the royal coroner, no less - could have decided to keep the name blanked out, as the Mirror did when it first published the letter.

But I am not much impressed, either, by Paul Burrell’s claim that he did not "support or endorse" the Mirror’s action - this from a former royal butler who has made close to 1 million for revealing details the royal family would have preferred to keep secret.

It is perfectly legitimate for us to know what Diana thought, however absurd, because it reveals how her bitterness towards Charles had turned to paranoia less than a year before her tragic death. It places her in the same crazy conspiracy camp as Mohamed al-Fayed, except that he has claimed it was Prince Philip’s hand behind the Paris car crash, which also, sadly, claimed the life of his son, Dodi, whom I knew and liked.

I rather doubt that the plods will be knocking on the door of either Charles or Philip any time soon. The owner of Harrods has never provided a shred of evidence to back up his fantastic claims against Philip, and Diana’s paranoia is no evidence whatsoever against Charles. But it is proof of the terribly sad state of Diana’s mind following her separation from Charles - a descent into darkness for which Charles and other senior royals must take some blame. I saw a little of it myself first hand when I lunched with the princess about a year or so before she penned her note.

She was bitter about Charles taking William and Harry skiing - which she dismissed as nothing but a "show in the snow" for the cameras - and when I teased her about driving a German car she said sternly: "Why not? I married a German!"

She did not confide in me, of course, that her husband was out to kill her, but it is clear that in the months that followed, as Camilla Parker Bowles came back into public view as her husband’s partner while Diana had a procession of unsatisfactory relationships, that her bitterness turned to despair and her despair to paranoia.

Diana is dead now, and I see no reason why this should not be in the public domain. We live in an increasingly censorious culture in which almost anything controversial the newspapers publish results in widespread condemnation and calls for the freedom of the press to be curtailed.

There is an insidious supposition among too many Establishment types that the rest of us are not quite adult enough to handle uncomfortable or contentious information. But for those who want to understand the reality of Diana - as opposed to the myth - it is important to know what she believed, however absurd. The Mirror has done nothing wrong. It might even have done us a service.

• The Guardian did us all a favour yesterday by publishing the transcript of Osama bin Laden’s latest edict. I know some will resent giving his evil ramblings further publicity, but it is important to know the nature of the enemy and the short clips carried in the broadcast media don’t give us the full flavour of what he is all about.

Read the transcript, however, and you will quickly see that this is not a terrorism which can be dealt with through tackling its "root causes", as the anti-American, liberal-Left constantly urge. This is a man who regards both the Middle East road map, and even the more radical recent Geneva peace initiative, as a "trick" and specifically states that the only "dialogue" he wants is "through arms". He will only cease his terrorism when every Israeli has been swept into the sea and the whole of the Middle East is under al-Qaeda-style control - so why you would want to remove his "causes" of terrorism is beyond me.

As with German Nazism 60 years ago, so with Islamo-Fascism today: the only effective response is force. The Guardian has done well to bring that home; pity it has yet to dawn on its own leader writers.

• TV stars Alan Davies (of Jonathan Creek fame) and Julia Sawalha (who plays put-upon Saffy in Ab Fab) are threatening legal action against various Sunday newspapers which claimed at the weekend that they had married in secret. I can understand why they’re annoyed by reports they say are "totally inaccurate", but I don’t quite see how they’ve been libelled or defamed or even had their privacy defiled. If the papers have got it wrong, they have a duty to correct matters this coming Sunday - and should do so. But getting married is hardly a hanging offence - at least not yet - and, as very public figures, they must expect some media interest in their relationship. By making such a song and dance about reports of their non-marriage they deflect attention from the papers’ mistake and highlight instead their own precious, out-of-proportion self-regard. But then, they are luvvies.

• Just when you thought the market for lads mags was saturated, IPC and Emap are about to launch two more and, unlike monthlies such as Loaded or FHM, they will be weekly, which is even more of a challenge in a crowded market. Emap will launch its strangely-titled Zoo Weekly later this month, but IPC is getting in first with its even more oddly-named Nuts, which will hit the news-stands next week.

Both will serve up the predictable diet of babes, football and fun which has served the monthly lads magazine well; but as weeklies they will be in much more direct competition with laddish tabloids like the Star and Sun. They will need very deep pockets to do that and only one, at most, is likely to survive.

• Forty-two journalists were killed in the course of their work last year, according to Reporters Without Frontiers. It’s the highest toll since 1995 and 25 more than 2002. The war in Iraq accounted for 14 of last year’s deaths. Covering a war is becoming more and more dangerous for journalists, says the watchdog, noting an increase in bomb attacks, the use of more sophisticated weapons and combatants’ increasing disregard for the safety of journalists.

British journalism has a self-deprecatory culture (we even refer to ourselves as hacks ) which stops us from becoming too big for our boots. But it also obscures the fact that it often involves brave folk who risk (and sometimes lose) their lives to report matters we need to know.