Princess Diana seen disagreeing with her advisers in unearthed footage

Dorothy Reddin
Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:56:04 +0000

Previously unseen footage from Princess Diana's landmark 1997 visit to Angola has been unveiled, revealing the princess's determination to confront political criticism despite objections from her own team.

The archive material, released on Wednesday as part of the broadcaster's Reporting History series, captured Diana during a sit-down with journalists in January 1997, when she travelled to the war-torn country to campaign against landmines.

When then-Africa correspondent Steve Scott asked whether he could pose a question about "the political role," Diana responded: "I'd have thought that was the most important question out of the two. I'd go for that one."

Her team attempted to intervene, with someone off-camera urging: "No, not the political one, you don't mean the political one."

The princess pushed back, making clear she wished to address the matter directly.

Diana's Angola trip had ignited fierce controversy, with the Conservative Government and sections of the tabloid press accusing her of endorsing Labour Party policy on the issue.

In the newly released footage by ITV, the princess dismissed such criticism as irrelevant to her mission.

"I saw it merely as a distraction as I'm not a political figure, I'm a humanitarian figure. Always have been and always will be," she stated.

At the time, a junior defence minister reportedly branded her a "loose cannon" who was "ill-informed" on the landmine question.

The then-35-year-old princess, who had recently divorced and was visiting with the Red Cross, remained undeterred by the political storm surrounding her campaign for a worldwide ban on the weapons.

Mr Scott, who spent more time with Diana than any other journalist during the Angola visit, shared his recollections of a private conversation with the princess on the flight home.

He told Reporting History presenter Tom Bradby that Diana spoke to him "as a mother, not as Diana, Princess of Wales."

"I stood with her on the plane all the way back. It was a long conversation. She wanted to talk about her boys and about how much she missed them when she goes away," Mr Scott recalled.

Despite her deep commitment to the landmine cause, Diana made clear that Prince William, then 14, and Prince Harry, then 12, remained her foremost concern.

"Her priority was her boys, and that's where she would be, focusing most of her energy going forward," Mr Scott said.

Diana's Angola visit was among her final humanitarian endeavours. Just seven months later, in August 1997, she died in a Paris car crash aged 36.

Reflecting on her death, Mr Scott said: "The woman that I spoke to about her sons and how important they were to her, suddenly those boys did not have that mother."

The princess's high-profile campaign helped accelerate international action on landmines.

In December 1997, 122 Governments signed the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel mines, which came into force in March 1999. More than 100,000 landmines have since been cleared from Angola.

Prince Harry visited the exact spot where his mother walked in 2019, and returned last year as patron of the Halo Trust.