If Lady Di had lived she’d be on Twitter . . . and Strictly

WheN elvis left the building for the last time in 1977, an RCA record company executive is said to have remarked: ‘Great career move.’ Twenty years later, I felt exactly the same way about the death of Lady Di.

Like Presley, Diana was on a downward spiral, living on past glories. After her divorce from Prince Charles, she insisted she was going to continue as an ‘independent member of the Royal Family’. As I can remember writing at the time, it was a bit like Bianca Jagger announcing, after she split up with Mick, that she would remain an independent member of the Rolling Stones.

Diana owed her position in life to the man she married. Once she’d produced an heir and a spare, the Windsors spat her out. Charles went back to the love of his life, Camilla.

Well, I say ‘went back’. he never really left Camilla, even after they married other people. Lady Di was seen as convenient breeding stock, that’s all. I’m not denying that she was treated badly by the royals, but she knew the deal — if not when she joined, then certainly by the time she broke their code of omerta with her self-pitying Panorama interview.

On the day she died in Paris, her stock was at an all-time low. She had been cast out by the aristocracy’s A-list and was reduced to the far less salubrious circuit of moneyed chancers and dubious euro-trash who flit from casino to super-yacht in private jets.

As the 20th anniversary of her death approaches, the retrospectives are in full swing. Last night’s documentary by her sons was the official opening of the 2017 Princess of hearts tribute tour.

The official merchandising is already on sale. Get your Lady Di T- shirt and digitally remastered Greatest hits album here.

I don’t blame William and harry for wanting to honour their mother, even if they haven’t been able to resist — yet again — using it as an another excuse to invite us to feel their pain.

It only seems about five minutes ago that they were airing their ‘mental health issues’ in a series of interviews. I suppose in that respect, they really are their mother’s sons.

DIANApopularised the cult of confession and the modern addiction to self-indulgent vicarious grief, which began with the unseemly sobfest in the wake of her death and now attends the demise of everyone from drugaddled pop stars to innocent victims of road accidents and terrorist atrocities.

She’s the poster girl for the Portashrine generation. That’s her real legacy. Diana is often credited with dragging the Royal Family into the modern era — as if that’s a good thing. Frankly, if we are going to have a monarchy, I’d prefer them to be seen and not heard.

I don’t want the heir to the throne spouting psychobabble and baring his innermost feelings on primetime television. his job is to appear on the stamps, wave a bit and look good in uniform.

Maybe we should cut out the middle man when her Maj departs this mortal coil and give the job to Claire Foy, who played the Queen in the popular Netflix drama, The Crown. A future series of The Crown could explore what Diana would have become had she lived.

Some think she might have done a Jackie Kennedy and married a billionaire. Madame Onassis had nothing on her.

Failing that she could have conquered America, perhaps joining elton John’s Red Piano Review in Las Vegas.

Come to think of it, she’d fit in nicely at Donald Trump’s Mar-aLago resort in Palm Beach, the land that taste forgot. In fact, last year Richard Kay and Geoffrey Levy revealed in the Mail that The Donald was quite taken with Diana, sent her a bunch of flowers and once boasted that he could have ‘nailed’ her had she lived.

At the time, when he was still just a sleazy property developer, she rejected his advances. If she’d have known he’d go on to become President of the United States, she might have warmed to him, maybe even accepted an offer to become the latest Mrs Trump.

First Lady Di has a nice ring to it. Certainly trumps Duchess of Cornwall. You can just imagine her turning up at Buckingham Palace A FIVE-YEAR-OLD girl who set up a stall selling lemonade at 50p a pop outside a local festival in East London was given a £150 fine for illegal trading by a Tower Hamlets council official. Of course, it’s not as if they’ve got anything else to worry about in Tower Hamlets, apart from drug dealers, prostitutes and gangs of Sharia law vigilantes, who roam the streets confiscating alcohol, threatening off-licence owners and harassing homosexuals. The fixed penalty notice has now been rescinded and a spokesman said: ‘We expect our enforcement officers to show common sense and to use their powers sensibly.’ Why? Nobody else does. How many times have I told you that if you give anyone any modicum of authority, they will always, always abuse it? for a state visit. Camilla would have been washing her hair that night, guaranteed.

Diana, like Trump, would have embraced the age of Twitter, posting Liz hurley- style selfies in a slashed swimsuit, holding a hosepipe.

Long before the internet took off, Lady Di was the mistress of the moody photo opportunity, whether sulking outside the Taj Mahal or posing reflectively on the diving board of a Mediterranean yacht.

I’m sure Philip Green would have been more than happy to give her a summer berth on one of his boats.

Shecould even have become an ambassador for Topshop, along with Kate Moss, hobnobbing with Naomi Campbell in the kind of restaurants favoured by Russian oligarchs and their bodyguards during London Fashion Week.

The danger is that these days she’d look more like Patsy, from Ab Fab, as the years in royal exile took their toll.

Diana would have revelled in the reality show era. Obviously, she’d be a bit leathery for Love Island, but she’d be a shoo-in for Strictly, skipping the light fandango with Bruno, turning cartwheels across the floor.

And she could name her price for I’m A Celebrity. It wouldn’t have been particularly dignified, but it would have been a good living.

Sadly, we’ll never know, so we’re left with the myth of the Princess of hearts and the doting mother, even though when she died she hadn’t seen her young sons for over a month and was gallivanting round europe with an Arab playboy.

Still, like elvis, who will always be The King to his legions of fans, she will not grow old as we grow old.

Great career move.