Swan Song by Charles Spencer review – a furious exercise in score-settling by Diana’s brother

Amid genuinely touching passages about his sister, the earl can’t help but put himself and his grievances centre stage Charles Spencer’s Swan Song, a memoir of his relationship with his sister, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, is a fascinating document that tells us a little about Diana and a great deal about Charles Spencer – perhaps more than we needed to know.

If that sounds snarky, after 400 pages of score settling, chest thumping, wild indiscretion and some truly touching passages about his late sister, the reader is left with a head-spinning story of the world that created Diana and a certain sourness at the manner in which it is told. Let’s start with the headlines in last week’s Daily Mail, the newspaper to whom Spencer sold serialisation of a book which includes a line describing tabloid journalists as “those who inhabit the murky swamps of malevolence, and who need to suck their victims dry of their souls”. Perhaps he meant a different set of hacks. Anyway the top line in the Mail was that, shortly after Diana’s death, King Charles insulted her in a phone call to Spencer: “‘Rest assured,’ he hissed,…