duties" and destroyed the border between private and public life. This view was supported by Christopher Hitchens, who believed that "in pursuit of a personal solution to an unhappy private life, she became an assiduous leaker to the press". Tina Brown argued that Diana was in no way "a vulnerable victim of media manipulation", and she found it "offensive to present the canny, resourceful Diana as a woman of no agency, as either a foolish, duped child or the hapless casualty of malevolent muckrakers". Nevertheless, Diana also used the media's interest in her to shine light on her charitable efforts and patronages. Sally Bedell Smith characterised Diana as unpredictable, egocentric, and possessive. Smith also argued that in her desire to do charity works, Diana was "motivated by personal considerations, rather than by an ambitious urge to take on a societal problem". Eugene Robinson, however, said that "[Diana] was serious about the causes she espoused". According to Sarah Bradford, Diana looked down on the House of Windsor, whom she reportedly viewed "as jumped-up foreign princelings" and called them "the Germans". Some observers, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, characterised her as a manipulative person. Blair also described Diana as "extraordinarily captivating" but an "unpredictable meteor" whose death was a "turning point" for the monarchy. After her death, it was revealed that Diana had been in discussion with Blair about a special role that would provide a government platform for her campaigns and charities to make her capable of endorsing Britain's interests overseas. In an article written for The Independent in 1998, journalist Yvonne Roberts observed the sudden change in people's opinion of Diana after her death from critical to complimentary, a viewpoint supported by Theodore Dalrymple, who also noticed the "sudden shift from cruel personal abuse to absurdly exaggerated respect". Roberts also questioned whether she had achieved anything different from other members of the royal family and added that Diana was neither "a saint" nor "a revolutionary" figure, but "may have encouraged some people" to tackle issues such as landmines, AIDS and leprosy. While analysing the impact of Diana's death and her extraordinary popularity from a gendered point of view, British historian Ludmilla Jordanova said: "To be an ideal, to be living for and on behalf of others is a terrible burden; it makes impossible, irreconcilable emotional demands – no human being can survive the complex forces that impact upon charismatic women."