LETTER: 'Great communicator' fights for sanity and has the Royal Household on toast

From Mr Jan May

Sir: One of the most powerful tactics used in negotiating is "nuisance value". The confident performance and candid responses of the Princess of Wales in her Panorama interview must rank among the most delightfully subtle, yet devastatingly effective, uses of veiled threats ever witnessed in public.

Most people would run from a marriage that had so seriously deteriorated. Most people would not disclose their infidelities to their friends, let alone their children. Most marriage break-ups are conducted in private, protecting the children and trying to ensure that they do not have to take sides. Yet this marriage breakdown, at the heart of a family that has operated behind closed doors for centuries, is taking place in an unprecedented glare of publicity. Not even publicity-hungry film stars indulge in such tactics - and tactics is what this extraordinary interview was all about.

This is a fight for sanity through self-esteem. The Princess is looking after her own future: she is telling the Palace what she wants, which I would guess she has been refused, and demonstrating what she can do if she doesn't get it.

She makes it clear that her low self-esteem has been overcome by realising her unique talent. She puts the "great communicator", Ronald Reagan, in the shade. Even Richard Branson must bow to the goddess of publicity. The Princess has found her forte, enjoys it, and wants to use it. How pleasing it must be to think you are worthless and then find out that you are the best in the world - bar none - and how that upsets those who once derided you.

She made it clear that she knows she has a skill and wants to use it. If any deal offered by the Palace includes stifling this one brilliant talent, what does she have left? The Palace would succeed in returning her to her admitted vulnerable state of mind - and she certainly does not want that.

Diana says she does not want a divorce because of the children, yet she cannot believe that it is better for the children to know that their parents are married and having affairs. She casts doubt on Charles's ability to be the next King, yet sidesteps the question of her eldest son being crowned instead of Charles. She reminds the palace of the embarrassment of a coronation involving a mistress and a wife, and that as a future King's mother she has influence. Powerful stuff.

We saw an angry woman, demonstrating to those who need to know what power she has and that they had better listen to what she wants, or else. And what she wants is to be a unique subsidiary to the royal firm: the title, the status and the income to be an independent operator, but still part of the royal conglomerate. She wants the back-up and endorsement of the Palace in order to continue to be a mega-superstar and show the world that she is not the thick breeder of future kings. Divorce or not, they have to strike a deal that suits Diana - she's got them on toast.

Yours faithfully,

Jan May

Balcome, West Sussex

21 November