'Dear Kate: The only way to cancel out conspiracy culture is to tell the truth'
It's hell being a member of the Royal Family. You and your children live in a gilded cage, guarded by suicidal quail, beyond which are the vicious, slathering hordes of Fleet Street, and the general public who are frequently even worse.
Nowhere is safe, no-one is normal, and you can't even undergo major abdominal surgery and be left alone to recuperate without a load of armchair nutjobs tweeting that you're either lying, abducted, or locked in the basement.
But dial back all the frothing lunacy which the Royal Family provokes, and you find people made peculiar by the highly-unusual role they've been given, and occasionally opt for.
They are deeply odd, compared to most of us. They are infantilised by servants, wealth and status, and are at the same time media cynics capable of hearing a camera shutter three fields away, instantly aware of which legal or ethical clause has been infringed. Which is why it's impossible to buy the claim the Royals have made this morning, of whoops-a-daisy-that-photo-wasn't-perfect-silly-me.
When fame becomes a way of life, it's next to impossible to take a photo they haven't thought about already (PA)Many years ago, a photographer friend told me how he got the first photos of Victoria Beckham. He got a tip off about a new girl group, and took a photo of her walking across a car park. She noticed him, and rushed over all excited, he said, to be papped for the first time. He showed her the image, and she skipped off happy as a clam. That was the one and only time Posh Spice has ever had a candid photo taken. When someone is that famous, that hyper-aware, they always know where the lens might be.
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And it's not just official snappers. Every member of the public has a camera in their pocket, and not the tiniest regard for ethics or privacy laws. Never mind the Spice Girls - when you're Royal, when you're related to Diana, when you're married to one of Diana's boys, that vigilance is switched on every time you come out of the palace gates.
An awful life, then, as mentioned. But it does mean that, when Royalty are pictured, you generally aren't going to catch them unawares. The late Queen chose her clothes and jewellery knowing full well it would be pored over for miniscule significance; and Kate hasn't set a foot outside the door for 20 years without expecting the same.
Which is why when she posed for a Mother's Day photo with her children, all looking giddy with glee, she and her husband knew the speculation it would both cause and contribute to, the comments they could expect, and could hazard a guess at what critics might say. Aided as they are by a slick media operation with experienced professionals, there were half a dozen knowledgeable grown-ups who all had to see, approve, and not raise any concerns about the photograph before it was issued to the world.
"Let's bypass our media handlers altogether and do it ourselves! What could possibly go wrong?" (Tim Rooke/REX/Shutterstock)Kate and William might, as parents, mainly be worried no-one's got a bogie and everyone's looking happy. Those around them would want to be sure there wasn't a six-year-old wearing a diamond watch, or liveried staff in the background, or something else that would make them seem distant and out of touch.
Which is why you can bet your last pound that someone, somewhere, said: "Are you sure you don't want to put your wedding ring on?" And someone else will have rolled their eyes about their youngest being pictured with crossed fingers, and noted that at least all his digits were present and correct this time, unlike the last Photoshop fail.
And that is also why it seems so odd that these two people, with that team of pros, put out a photo which Kate now says she fiddled with a little "like many amateur photographers" and in so doing chopped her own torso in half, removed a chunk of her daughter's sleeve, and cut off a hank of hair. Did half a dozen well-paid, fully-grown, media-savvy individuals really not think anyone would notice? And if Meghan did such a thing with one of her own glossy PR images, would 'oh no, silly me' really cut it?
Much of the art of royalty involves not telling the whole truth. Most of PR is about not telling ANY. But both also come with an awareness that the Prince of Wales will one day be head of state, and if he's to make it to Westminster Abbey for the crowning he needs to take the British public with him. They're generally not keen on being lied to - if you don't believe me, just ask Jeffrey Archer if it's safe to go to Sainsbury's yet.
We can all imagine a world where there were several photos taken, and not one of them had all three children looking in the right direction. They can wriggle, argue, blink, and grump. It may seem fair enough to layer one over another, for any normal family.
But in the case of royalty it shows an absence of normal - it's a sleight of hand, a pulling of wool, and when the internet is alight with conspiracies about someone's wellbeing, only an idiot would feed them by editing an official photo. You might as well announce a sudden move to an Arctic prison camp.
It's just a photo. It's meaningless. Many people just don't care. But royalty exists with our consent, and if the very purpose of issuing a Mother's Day photo is to look normal then, for the love of Uncle Gary, release a normal photo. Or don't release one at all.
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But don't lie. Don't pretend. The Royals know better than anyone else that public subterfuge does not make a marriage last, or a reputation hold. We live in a time where conspiracies seem to be everywhere, whether they're invented by populists like Donald Trump, or consistently uncovered at the heart of the British state, like the nuked blood scandal, the Battle of Orgreave, or 30p Lee's actual sale price.
The only way to cancel out that highly-damaging conspiracy culture is to tell the truth. Release the images that were edited so guilelessly, or face yet more speculation: that's what a sensible PR professional would tell Kate and William. What happens next will tell us whether these two consider themselves above logic and beyond advice, if they're served by fools, or if they really are as normal - and utterly, gleefully, photogenically happy - as they would have us believe.
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