A lot of Sussex Squad peeps were sharing a Daily Mail headline on Wednesday: “LIZ JONES: No one is bullying Kate. She bravely took the rap for Photogate… but we all know who is really to blame.” They assumed, without reading, that yet another Mail columnist was trying to deflect from “Kate Gate” aka “The Mother’s Day Photo Fiasco” by tossing the Duchess of Sussex under the bus, because obviously Meghan is always “to blame.” But y’all missed out on something interesting… Liz Jones didn’t blame Meghan, she blamed Prince William and Kensington Palace. It seems that every way you turn, you run into the fact that William, ever gallant, threw his sick wife to the wolves and it has not gone unnoticed. They’ve also noticed that “the wheels have come off” Kensington Palace.

Kate didn’t smile & wave in the car on Monday: How had the happy, open, not-a-worry-in-the-world woman seen in that Mother’s Day shot transformed into this aloof enigma. She knows those snappers outside Windsor like she knows her own cleaner – why didn’t she wave and smile for one second as the car pulled out? That is what startled us most. It just wasn’t like Kate – the sudden withdrawal of the beaming, stoic goodwill we are used to. That was the moment anyone with any sense would blame the Palace – again – for failing to have a joined-up strategy in place, with everyone on board. But it was the moment that told me that Kate is not co-operating and that she didn’t have a hand in photogate but took the rap for it.

A palace problem: It is her PR and communications team who’d have chosen it and released it with its bland, cheery message, doubtless carelessly done because it was a weekend and perhaps they don’t really do weekend working. The Palace has had decades of knowing whatever they say will be believed. The late Queen was trusted. This has made them arrogant. But today they are up against an army of millions of keyboard warriors: it is the wisdom of the crowds, made real and dangerous, instantaneous.

Kate is not being bullied: What has made me particularly angry are the headlines suggesting the public has got it in for Kate. The Sun gave over its front page to the order ‘Leave Kate Alone’. On X, we started to see more and more Tweets such as: ‘The press killed Diana. Now they are after Kate!’ But no one is bullying the Princess of Wales. We are all on her side, merely puzzled and worried. It is the Wales’s communications team who have thrown her – and to some extent William – under the bus.

Terrible staff work: Didn’t anyone think to remind him that on his first outing with Kate since her op and Photogate that he should look attentive and loving in the car. As for his appearance at the Commonwealth Day Service, he didn’t even acknowledge the dancers and musicians playing merrily outside. If the Wales’s public relations team had completed their media studies and IT course at community college they’d have known that the way to lay this to rest was for William to have addressed the furore on Monday evening when he gave a speech for the Earthshot Prize Launchpad. He could have included a few jokey references to the doctored family snap and we’d have gone: ‘Phew, everything’s fine!’

William’s arrogance: William’s seriousness at the moment, the shoulders-slumped exasperation, the refusal to acknowledge us minions, to make light about his wife’s editing skills or reassure us fondly and warmly about her health, are fuelling the wilder social media speculation. This could all have been averted, our worries laid to rest, by a PR team that knew what it was doing – and Kate wouldn’t have been dragged into it at all but left to continue her convalescence. Just come clean with the people who bankroll you. It’s the least we deserve. This isn’t going away.

[From The Daily Mail]

Oh, saying outright that Kate isn’t cooperating?? Blaming careless staff work and William’s wall-to-wall stupidity in how he’s failed, at every turn, to defuse the situation? What’s even funnier is that Richard Eden – of all people – also discussed William’s lack of chivalry:

The Daily Mail’s Diary Editor Richard Eden told Palace Confidential that Kensington officials behaved ‘disgracefully’ after Kate Middleton shared a statement on social media, apologising ‘for any confusion’ the picture posted on Sunday caused.

‘I’m just so sad and sort of frustrated about the whole thing because I feel so sorry for Catherine,’ he told Jo Elvin and Richard Kay. ‘Essentially, she’s been under so much pressure from people saying “we want a photo, we want to know how she is, tell us how she is”, that sort of thing. And she finally issues this photograph, it’s taken by Prince William – they make that clear when they issue the photograph. It’s not some personal thing, it’s issued by Kensington Palace communications people and then she has been thrown under a bus.’

Richard said that Kate was either made to, or agreed, to publish the personally signed statement.

‘I think it’s disgraceful,’ he continued. ‘It’s very ungentlemanly of Prince William to put the onus on her. For goodness sake, he’s the one who took the photograph. And the officials made it public. They gave it out, it’s their job. I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that they’ve said to her “you go an explain what you did”. No, it’s your job. Take some responsibility.’

Richard also slammed the advisors around the Prince and Princess of Wales, saying that they needed ‘good and strong’ people in their vicinity.

‘You don’t want pathetic “yes men”,’ he said. ‘Here they would definitely benefit from having stronger officials and it wouldn’t surprise me if heads do roll over this, if not now… then eventually.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Eden also said that heads should roll in KP, and I agree, although that won’t solve every problem because KP’s principals are still the same and they’re still incompetent at every level. As you can see, there are open discussions in the most powerful media outlet in Britain about the heir’s ungentlemanly behavior, blatantly throwing his wife under the bus, and the Kensington Palace clownery. Welcome to the big show, we’ve been talking about this for years.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Kensington Palace.