Princess Diana's death - the social impact

Twenty years ago today, Britain and the world lost one of the seminal figures - at least in terms of public affection - of the millennial era.

What impact has this most unexpected death had on the British mindset and social fabric?

Since the passing of Princess Diana we've become both less trusting of major public institutions, including the monarchy, and, on a perhaps more positive note, less inclined to mistake familiarity with intimacy.

In some quarters, the reaction to the princess's death was akin to the way we might react to the sudden passing of a family member or a very close friend. People spoke in very personal terms about the princess, though we really only knew her through the lens of her media image and, in some cases, the manipulation of that image.

Only a very small coterie knew her well. Though she championed the causes of common people, few if any of them would have been part of her inner circle. Throughout her life she remained a part of a cohort that is largely cut of from the everyday struggles of the working and middle classes.

Over the past 20 years, we've come to a more nuanced view of her personality and her life. Many if not most of us still rightly admire her compassionate work, her devotion to her sons and her attempts to humanise the royal family and our perceptions of it.

With the benefit of distance and hindsight we have become a little more aware of the personal struggles she faced, both emotionally and psychologically. We can't possibly know all the details and most wouldn't want to, but these days we're perhaps less inclined to mistake a sense of arms length familiarity with real intimacy when it comes to people in the public eye.

We are a more healthy society for it.

On the flip side of the coin, over the past two decades - and partly because of Diana's passing - we've become a less trusting society when it comes to public institutions.

One of the most immediate effects of her death was an outpouring of unusually strong and at times virulent outpouring of public feeling against the royal family.

Since then we've become less trusting on other fronts too. This is borne out by scientific studies. The Edelman Communications Group annually surveys people in more than 20 nations to learn their levels of trust when it comes to public institutions such as government, media, business and so on.

Edelman's 2017 study records something of a crisis of trust. Governments, on average, are trusted by only 41 percent of the populations in the nations surveyed, which include thge UK. Media is trusted by just 43 percent.