The cover-up instinct

I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. I think the moon landings took place as billed. And Diana’s car crashed into a pillar in the Pont de l’Alma without the assistance of the Duke of Edinburgh.

In the last case, I am particularly disinclined to believe in conspiracy theories since, prior to the accident, I had ridden through the tunnel in a taxi several times, the first when I was 11 years old. Each time I had the same thought: ‘God, this is a stupid design for a tunnel.’ It contains a long series of square concrete pillars along the central reservation, separated from the road only by a couple of feet and a feeble kerb. It is now 15 years since it saw the most famous car crash in history, yet no guard-rails have been installed. The real scandal this reveals is the reluctance of people to do something obvious (like installing guard-rails) when by doing so you might admit that you were wrong in the first place.