A tailor-made-for-Sunday headline in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday informed us:
“Queen: Kate should get a proper job.”
Ho, ho, ho, that should put on a few hundred thousand copies. The online header is even more explicit. “Queen: Kate should get a proper job before Prince William announces their engagement.”
But is it true? It depends what you mean by “true”.
Reading between the lines, here’s my imagined scenario of how this story emerged into the light of day — I could be totally wrong.
Katie Nicholl, the Diary Editor, had written a piece about Kate Middleton for her inside column. It covered the continuing criticism of Kate’s apparent lack of a job, which seems to exercise some people almost to the point of madness.
The article, which was basically supportive, obviously drew on inside information from the Middleton family for its detailed descriptions of Kate’s involvement in the family businesses as a kind of creative director, including shooting product photos for the websites.
However, in another part of the newsroom, the MoS editorial department had received a briefing from a Palace “source” telling of the Queen’s doubts about Kate Middleton — “a nice enough girl” — and specifically mentioning HM’s belief that Kate should get a job or develop a career before an engagement is announced. This is graphically described as the “Kate Problem”.
The story was written up and tacked onto the diary piece under the Diary Editor’s byline to make a great front-page Sunday splash.
It’s my belief that what we’re seeing here is an attempt by a growing anti-Kate Middleton faction in the Palace to brief against her in the press. The Mail is just reporting what it’s been told and drawing the desired conclusions.
The basic facts of the briefing may just creep into the lower levels of accuracy in that the Queen has undoubtedly discussed Kate many times with William and close friends. She may well have agreed that Kate needs a focus for her life, especially as she’s had to wait it out for her big moment for nearly seven years. But I’m sure HM would never have wished her views to be made public in this way or made to look as if she were packing Kate off to the Reading Job Centre.
The case of Sophie, now Countess of Wessex, is still a live one. As a career woman in the PR business, her position eventually became an untenable nightmare for the Palace and the Queen. Every time she landed a plum contract, she was accused of abusing her Royal position, as was her husband, Prince Edward, with his TV production company. They are now fulltime working Royals, bringing up a young family.
Stories like the Mail’s yesterday are going to pop up all the time as people get bored with waiting for firm news, and factions develop among courtiers and officials — they can be quite excitable at times.
As Royal Anecdotes has been saying for more than a year, the “Kate Problem” is not a problem with Kate at all, but with Prince William’s determination to drag out his marriage decision interminably. It’s beginning to look like the old political manoeuvre of “kick it into the long grass”. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a Royal Commission is just around the corner.
The problem is a William one. He should heed the wise counsel of his grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, “For God’s sake marry the girl or let her go.”
