Payback Time At Harrods

William Langley writes:

Mohammed Fayed, Britain's leading purveyor of conspiracy theories, will have returned to his threadbare-carpeted, oak-panelled fifth-floor office above Harrods quietly satisfied after hearing yesterday's summing-up of the evidence in the inquest into the deaths of his son, Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Wales.

The great thing about believing that Diana and her boyfriend were bumped off by MI6, assisted by the CIA, Scotland Yard, Tony Blair and the late princess's sister and brother-in-law, all acting on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh, is that it allows you to believe just about anything.

Including that the inquest you demanded has been fixed, and that the coroner - in this case the dubiously establishment Lord Justice Scott Baker - was cunningly planted by the same 'dark forces' you think secretly run the country.

The coroner's forthright, if predictable, conclusion that there was "not a shred of evidence" that Diana was murdered, and that Fayed's accusations should be totally disregarded by the jury, is an ideal outcome for Fayed. Any suggestion that his claims had credence might have obliged him to come up with some evidence.

As things stand he can simply expand the vast conspiracy that engineered the crash in the Alma tunnel to include the coroner and most of the 250 witnesses who have so far appeared at a hearing now running into its seventh month at a cost approaching £8m.

Even at Harrods that kind of money goes a long way. Fayed could usefully mark the inquest's end by throwing open the doors of his Knightsbridge store to allow the British public he has stiffed for several millions of pounds, to help themselves to an equivalent amount of merchandise.

Deport Fayed. Nationalise Harrods. And spend its revenue on providing access to justice for those who need it.