Kate deserves better. We all do.

Why would anyone want public life if this is how the public behave?

HRH The Princess of Wales with her son, Prince Louis. (Kensington Palace)

At the time, it seemed a rather simple, straightforward request.

Catherine, The Princess of Wales - forever Kate Middleton in the world of online keywords - needed an abdominal operation. One serious enough to necessitate a two-week hospital stay, followed by at least ten weeks of recuperation at home.

The palace statement, likely by royal request, acknowledged the questions about to erupt:

“The Princess of Wales appreciates the interest this statement will generate. She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private.” (17 January, 2024)

Call me crazy, but I took that at face value. As did most people I know. Naturally, some speculated, most with real sympathy based on health struggles they, or family members, had been through.

In most circles, in real life and online, there was only genuine concern for her welfare, wishes for a speedy recovery - and many kind thoughts for her three young children. (Remember them? More on that in a moment…)

However… in the online world of anonymous trolls and self-proclaimed experts, all hell broke loose. Almost immediately, the rumours and vicious speculation started in one particularly poisonous corner of the internet.

No worries. The crazies on the internet are ignored, right?

Wrong.

Jonathan Swift once said, “It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.”

The same could be said of the internet and social media today. It is a constant struggle to remind yourself, “this is not real life”.

But the poison that started in one corner, spread like a virus. Soon being discussed, sometimes out of faux concern, by “experts”, press, television and radio, and many other people who should know much, much better.

Victoria Arbiter, on her Royal Report (along with her father, former press secretary Dickie Arbiter) may have coined the best term for some of the global press taking this on: “clout chasers” - using the Princess’s profile to promote themselves, or their programmes. (watch Royal Report here)

I had decided to avoid posting about any of this for the most part. I firmly believe that in the face of feeding frenzies, any attention only fuels it, particularly in the rabid wing of the internet that started this abusive trolling. (I’m still worried that even this piece may hurt more than it helps)

And to be quite clear, abusive trolling is exactly what this is, by the named and the anonymous.

A woman told us she needed an operation, would be out for several weeks, and asked for privacy. Instead, she’s been terrifyingly grabbed by an angry, demanding, unreasonable mob of strangers, treated as a piece of public property, her very likeness and condition tortured and torn apart in the online town square.

This daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend (and beloved daughter-in-law) has been turned into a public caricature; exposed, ridiculed, questioned, and dissected, in the most appalling way.

You wonder if any of the mob have any children themselves, particularly young children.

Remember the three Wales children? Anyone?

Any serious operation has an obvious physical recovery time, but then a mental and emotional component as well, coming to terms with what may be, a new normal.

Like any famous parent, I highly doubt the Princess of Wales wants her children hearing chapter and verse on her medical condition in school, or at the playground.

Doesn’t she have the right to explain it to them personally, when and how she sees fit? And to keep those explanations within the privacy of their home?

Not satisfied with running over her rights and the rights of her children, her husband has also been accused of the most defamatory, hideous things.

Even an old military trick (especially among the guards) to maintain circulation whilst standing for long periods of time, was spun into a sinister tale. And worse, repeated by some of these “experts” and overseas “royal reporters”. (The peril of having people with no real-life experience in the UK casting themselves as voices of authority)

It makes you wonder why we ever allowed people to publish anything they like online, without any shred of basic decency, without fear of consequence or retribution, and usually the sort of content that would never make it past the desk of the most junior editor.

It shouldn’t matter if you’re a monarchist or republican, or what you think of the Wales family or Royal family, to look at this and say: this is very, very wrong.

The Princess is not the only victim here. It points to a much larger, graver problem, that affects us all.

We are making public life and public service increasingly unbearable. The people who traffic in the worst abuse bear responsibility, but it only really does damage with an audience.

At a time when the world seems increasingly unstable and dangerous, we need mature, measured, serious leaders more than ever. We need the best people to stand up and serve.

Would the best person you know subject themselves - and their families - to today’s version of public life, and routine public beatings? To expect that even at a time of family illness - when you may be at your most distressed, when most “normal” people have family, and friends, rally round - your family will instead be subjected to cruel, relentless public abuse.

The Princess of Wales asked simply, and kindly, for several weeks to recover from a private medical issue.

If public life means you can no longer expect basic privacy over your own body, your very being, your most intimate medical records - would any of you want it?

Kate deserves better. We all do.