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The royal family

Kate is a force to be reckoned with 

Maybe it’s Kate, not Meghan, who’s the real royal revolutionary, says Tony Allen-Mills in The Sunday Times. She turned up at Sarah Everard’s vigil in south London “casually dressed with minimal security”, and laid flowers she’d picked from the palace garden. Later she quietly sent a letter of condolence to the family. There was no fuss, no fanfare, none of the manufactured theatrics of the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah. As royal biographer Penny Junor puts it, “Kate was making a very subtle point. You don’t need to make a song and dance about things. She just turned up at Clapham quietly… it spoke volumes.” 

Few expect the Duchess of Cambridge “to express the remotest hint of a political belief”, but her focus on mental health, the problems of early childhood and other charitable causes are reaping “incalculable benefits”. She’s also a “video-conferencing force to be reckoned with”. When she spoke to 21-year-old Jasmine Harrison, the youngest woman to row solo across the Atlantic, it could easily have been “a routine royal congratulatory quickie”. Instead Kate turned it into “a stirring eight-minute celebration of womanhood and willpower”. Nor has she ever sought to upstage Prince William. So far, in the words of former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond, she’s “played a blinder”. 

Read the full article here.