In an article in today’s Mail on Sunday, Katie Nicholl reports that friends of Prince William and Kate Middleton believe that an engagement announcement is planned for “just before or just after Christmas,” and that a wedding could be in May or June.

If an earlier story is true that Kate will not be at Sandringham until Boxing Day (December 26), it will clearly be just after, which seems like perfect timing to catch the world’s headlines.

The article, however, maintains the Mail’s new policy of acknowledging the Kate-hating crowd of spitting and cursing opponents of her match with the world’s most eligible batchelor. A section of the piece reprints some of the vituperative comments from the paper’s website.

A careful reading of the article reveals it’s in two parts. The first reflecting opinions of some Buckingham Palace courtiers, while the second part concentrates on the view from Clarence House.

These two courts have been at loggerheads with each other since the days of Diana, Princess of Wales. It seems the dogs of war have been unleashed again on the subject of the entirely innocent and inexperienced figure of Kate Middleton.

As Royal Anecdotes reported some months ago, there appears to be a growing faction of “courtiers” at the Palace who oppose the wedding of the two young people. They freely quote the Queen as insisting Kate should get a job and that “she’s not proactive enough.”

I believe there may be some noises of disquiet, particularly from Prince Philip, at the lack of a firm decision on this match. One can imagine him stating that Kate really should be doing something else while she waits. The aim, though, may be to prompt William into “marrying the girl, or letting her go” — a statement attributed to Prince Philip two years ago.

The anti-Kate faction in the Palace has picked up on this theme and translated it as the Queen’s wish that Kate “got a job.” This then becomes “work for a charity.” Have they forgotten that Kate was involved with a charity cross-Channel dragon-boat race last year but was asked to pull out for safety reasons by Clarence House? A dig at Prince Charles’s press team, perhaps?

The article ends with extensive quotes from the Clarence House viewpoint which show the truth at the heart of this story:

Despite this reluctance to co-operate with the Press, Kate’s friends say she has access to Press officers and senior aides at Clarence House, where she is free to come and go at her leisure.

“Kate has a hotline to Clarence House and she listens to everything the Royal aides tell her to do,” said a friend. “When they advised her to pull out of the cross-Channel dragon boat race last summer, she did it immediately. Kate is approached about doing lots of things but the Clarence House staff are often against her taking part because they think it’s too high-profile and they want to keep Kate out of the limelight. She’s in a bit of a Catch 22 situation.”

Royal Anecdotes believes that what is happening to Kate Middleton is very close to persecution. The wave of teenage angst she has had to face from many downmarket websites, including the Mail’s (which is moderated), is almost beyond belief since very few of the trolls will ever have met her. To quote the Kate-haters as proof of anything rational is tantamount to giving up on moderate and accurate journalism.

We’ve long stated that only a quick resolution by Prince William will spare his long-time girlfriend this avalanche of mindless criticism.

We are delighted that an announcement looks possible from Sandringham at Christmas.

BBC Radio played a journalist’s tape recording of an interview with the Prince of Wales this morning in which he is heard getting very angry over genetically-modified crops (GM).

Jeff Randall of the Telegraph, and formerly the BBC’s Business Editor, interviewed the Prince at the Castle of Mey in Caithness where Charles and Camilla are holidaying.

At one stage Randall asked him why he objects to “large corporations” making the running on GM, since only they can afford the investment for research and development.

Charles replied that large companies are conducting a “gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong. Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything? That would be the absolute destruction of everything, and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future.”

The Prince believes food security should be put above an unregulated race for food production.

He continued with considerable passion, “And if they think it’s somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest environmental disaster of all time.”

The phrase “Count me out!” is used at least twice to hammer home his point. Commentators are today speculating precisely what he meant by it.

My personal interpretation is that he means to go on as he has for 40 years, making his case strongly and, as he sees it, non-politically. However, currently he is boycotting the Olympic Games because of China’s activities in Tibet. He also refused to attend a State banquet for the Chinese President in London and met the Dalai Lama openly, flaunting political advice.

Clearly Charles is treading a fine line on these issues now that food and climate change have become hot political topics around the world.

His position could become serious once he is King. Going against the Government of the day on policy would create not just an unseemly row but a major constitutional crisis. Already the usual crew of grumbly Labour backbenchers are feigning outrage at his remarks.

With the phrase “Count me out!” could Charles be signalling that he will not preside over a country that has relinquished its control in these crucial areas to the European Union, which has significantly softened its attitudes to GM crops and research in recent years?

Might he be saying, I just can’t do this job, it would be against all my principles and life’s work?

Or was it just a rush of blood to the head in response to some shoot-from-the-hip questioning?

Jeff Randall’s background to the interview can be read here.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced that Prince William will spend time with Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the Defence Staff, and General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, when he returns to his Army service in September.

Intriguingly, he will also serve with the Special Forces, the SAS, and possibly the SBS, but will not be involved in forward operations. This placement is at his own request, the BBC reports.

In the four or five months remaining of his military service, William will be shown what goes on at the very apex of the Services’ hierarchy with the highest of the top brass, deep in the MoD building in Whitehall. It will be the culmination of an action-packed and wide-ranging three-year training period to prepare him for his future role as Head of the Armed Forces.

From tomorrow, the Prince will be on holiday in Mustique with girlfriend Kate Middleton, who has already flown out to the Caribbean to be with him. It has been reported that she refused a free upgrade to First Class on the BA flight, preferring to be treated like everyone else. “Please call me Kate,” she told cabin crew, putting an end to recent confusion over her preferred name.

On the couple’s return, they are expected to spend a week with the Queen and the Prince of Wales at Balmoral in Scotland. Some news sources are claiming that plans for a summer wedding next year are well underway and will be put to bed in August. At the very least a hint of an announcement may just leak out of the grand Scottish castle to set Royalist hearts aflutter all over again.

In the BBC footage this morning I was struck by William’s growing maturity and poise. In full Navy kit he no longer resembles his mother, but bears a striking likeness to the young Prince Philip, his grandfather.

It’s a very good omen.

The News of the World has an article in today’s edition about Prince William’s “future training” to be King. If we bear in mind that the past three years of military service were a crucial part of that preparation, there’s nothing really new in this piece.

Normally the NOTW doesn’t have the best reputation for Royal stories, but this assessment has authority as it’s written by Robert Jobson, author of the excellent book William’s Princess.

There’s a broad hint in the piece that the Prince may not have time for a wedding next year because of his busy schedule learning to be a Monarch. Every year will be a hectic one for William from now on, so this is a bit disingenuous. He will have to find time somewhere along the line. Next year will probably be less arduous than most simply because he will be learning rather than doing the job full-time. It’s much easier to find a gap in a period of study than when carrying out engagements planned two years in advance.

Jobson lists William’s new schedule:

* Working at different Whitehall departments and being shown the inner workings of government by Privy Councillors, including former Prime Minister John Major.

* Lessons in the job of being King by constitutional experts such as Oxford don Dr Vernon Bogdanor.

* Learning to manage the Duchy of Cornwall, the landed trust he will inherit from Charles when his father becomes King.

* Running the Sandringham Estate — a job his grandfather Prince Philip has been doing for years.

* Solo tours of the Commonwealth, taking some of that burden from the Queen.

An aide is quoted as saying, “For the first time we have an established Monarch, an active and experienced Heir to the Throne and in Prince William and Prince Harry real youth appeal. The Prince Of Wales has had a long time to prepare for what will probably be a relatively short reign. Prince William has effectively got to get to grips with the job very quickly. It is a very different world to when the Queen ascended the Throne and she wants him to be prepared for what is to come. William too wants to make sure he is ready for any challenge that’s thrown at him.”

All this we have known for some time. Most of these activities can be accomplished fairly quickly, given the knowledge already gained over 26 years of being a Prince while watching his father and his grandmother performing their duties. Much of what William will need will be on-the-job experience — actually doing it for himself.

There has also been talk of him working in a newspaper office. It will be an asset for him to experience the difficulties involved in gathering, fact-checking, writing and publishing news stories to exceptionally short deadlines. It will allow him to be less censorious of the hard-working hacks who bring us the latest on … himself, for example. He will also understand the need to provide the press and broadcast media with unambiguous lines of information. Putting a heavy spin on every story quickly dissipates the credibility of the messenger.

Jobson quotes a senior courtier, “A key skill for him to learn, the Queen believes, is to disguise his feelings, like politicians. His father has never really managed to achieve this.”

William and Kate are expected to take a three-week break when his Royal Navy secondment finishes next week. I don’t imagine he will want to fly back to the Caribbean so soon after his deployment, so we may hear of a fresh destination for their holiday. I’m told Montana is very refreshing at this time of the year.

The article serves as a useful reminder of William’s schedule for the next two years. One thing’s for sure, there’s no obvious reason to postone that much anticipated Royal wedding.

The military should have taught Prince William how to make crisp decisions. Now is the time for crispness. Limpness is not an option.