The Crown risks falling out with Tony Blair by suggesting he lobbied the late Queen for a more public role for Princess Diana within weeks of being elected Prime Minister

The Crown risks angering Tony Blair by portraying the former prime minister lobbying Queen Elizabeth II for a public role for Princess Diana in the sixth and final series of the Netflix drama.

In the first episode of the season, which drops on Netflix on Thursday, Blair (played by Doctor Foster’s Bertie Carvel) presents the idea of ​​the late princess working with the government on a “more formal basis” despite her divorce from Prince Charles .

However, the Queen, played by Imelda Staunton, quickly rejects the proposal, saying: ‘As a divorcee and no longer an HRH, Diana is now learning the difference between being an official member of the Royal Family and beyond.’

Although Blair famously intervened in the days after Diana’s death to persuade the Queen to abandon her “stiff upper lip” protocol, there is no evidence that he ever lobbied Her Majesty on behalf of the Queen before her death. estranged wife from her son.

And the suggestion that the late Princess Diana had attracted the former Prime Minister’s attention to this subject from a more public role is highly unlikely, as he was still in the early days of his role after being elected in May 1997.

Diana visited Blair at Checkers on July 6, but he wrote in his biography that their conversation was tense after he expressed concerns about her new relationship with Dodi Fayed.

It was also said that the princess was annoyed with Blair because the date of their meeting was moved from June to July.

The Prime Minister had prioritized a visit to Prince Charles because, he said, Labor spin doctor Alastair Campbell felt it was “inappropriate for me to see her” before meeting the then Prince of Wales.

But The Crown shows the ex-prime minister visiting Queen Elizabeth eight weeks before Diana’s death to talk about her former daughter-in-law.

This would have been before Diana even visited Checkers in real life, or immediately afterward. Yet it is highly unlikely that the then Prime Minister would have immediately run off to plead Diana’s case to the monarch.

In the first episode of series six, The Crown’s Blair is captured at the Prime Minister’s mansion, Chequers, with his wife Cherie (Lydia Leonard).

The couple discusses the royal family (Elizabeth Debicki), with Cherie asking her husband, “Remind me: why is Diana coming to visit?”

The scene then cuts to a meeting between the then Prime Minister and the Queen, in which she inquires about the Princess’s trip to Chequers.

He tells the monarch that he and Diana played five-a-side football, had lunch and went for a walk.

Blair says:[Diana] strongly feels that she still has a lot to offer the country as a civil servant and a lot of energy.’

He also brings up her recent work on landmines and how a hundred countries have now signed a treaty banning them. He adds, “When Diana talks, the world listens.”

The queen nods in response and says “yes,” followed by a long awkward silence.

Blair continues: ‘She wanted to know if the government could find a way to use her gifts on a more formal basis and whether any official basis they might offer her would be greatly appreciated.’

The monarch answers: ‘I always say that it is difficult to be half at something. You are inside or outside. You yourself would know the difference between being in or out of government.

‘While she is the mother of the boys and for that matter always welcome at the palace. As a divorcee and no longer HRH, Diana is now learning the difference between being an official member of the Royal Family and outside of it.”

Princess Diana and Tony Blair, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1997 to 2007, certainly had a working relationship, something he described in his 2010 memoir.

She also visited Checkers in July 1997, which he said he described in the book The guard.

The former Labor Prime Minister revealed that the late royal family came to the country retreat with Prince William, who played with the Blair children as they walked through the gardens.

But while The Crown suggests the pair discussed Blair lobbying the Queen for a bigger role for Diana, in the memoir he suggested the royal family was annoyed by the conversation they had at Chequers, suggesting they were not on the same page were discussing the issue. discussion they had.

Blair did not go into detail about what he and Diana discussed, but he revealed in the memoir that he expressed concerns about her relationship with Dodi Fayed.

Former Prime Minister Sir John Major launched a blistering attack on The Crown last year, describing an abdication storyline in the fifth series as a ‘barrel of evil nonsense’.

In the episode, Charles, who is the Prince of Wales at that stage in the series, is shown trying to implicate Sir John in what appears to be a plot to oust the Queen. At the time – 1991 – Sir John had been in Downing Street for less than a year.

But the former prime minister joined other politicians and friends of Charles in dismissing the storyline as baseless fiction.

Another scene that provokes Sir John’s ire shows a private conversation between him and his wife Norma in their bedroom during their stay at Balmoral. Mr Major appears to be in despair over the behavior of individual members of the royal family. He also dismissed that exchange as fiction.

Sir John’s spokesman told The Mail on Sunday: ‘If the scenes you describe are broadcast they should be seen as nothing more than harmful and malicious fiction.

‘A barrel of nonsense that was put out for no other reason than to achieve maximum – and completely false – dramatic impact.’

Friends of the king said Charles had always been acutely aware that, because of the monarch’s position within the Church, abdication would amount to heresy.

The Queen was known to have been scarred by the scandal of the abdication of her uncle, Edward VIII, in 1936, and was concerned that if she followed suit it could devalue the institution and spell the end of the monarchy itself .

Sir John, a staunch Royalist, insists he has not collaborated with The Crown in any way. “Nor was he ever contacted by them to fact-check scripted material in this or any other series,” his spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added: ‘As you know, discussions between the monarch and the Prime Minister are completely private and – for Sir John – always will be. But none of the scenes you depict are accurate in any way.

‘They are fiction, pure and simple. There was never any discussion between Sir John and the then Prince of Wales about the possible abdication of the late Queen Elizabeth II – and such an unlikely and inappropriate subject was never raised by the then Prince of Wales (or Sir John) .’

Sir John, who was prime minister between 1990 and 1997, has had close ties to the royal family for decades and was the only British politician invited to attend Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018.

After the death of Princess Diana in 1997, Mr Major, as he then was, was appointed special guardian of Princes Harry and William.

His appointment is said to have been made at the suggestion of the prince’s father, who asked the politician to protect the interests of Harry and William in the negotiations over their mother’s will.