LIZ JONES: Nobody’s bullying Kate. She bravely took responsibility for Photogate… but we all know who the real culprit is

It all started to die down, the embers were still smoldering, but surely it won’t be for much longer. The Great Mother’s Day Photo Scandal was ‘explained’ in a charming tweet signed by ‘C’.

The photo of Catherine and her three children was not a reverse Christmas photo, nor was it a portrait from the cover of Vogue. It was simply tinkered with by a Princess of Wales, who may have too much time on her ringless hands while she recovers from surgery.

But then, on Monday, Kate was spotted in a car with William, away from Windsor.

The two press photographers outside the gate were surprised and so managed to break only the back of her beautiful head when she turned away from them. Word from the Palace was that she and her husband – he was on his way to the Commonwealth Day service in London – got a lift for a private appointment.

Suddenly, a bellows was used on those embers, and social media not only caught fire, but exploded into a new nuclear mushroom of speculation.

Some of it was just stupid. Through the car window, the bricks on the wall did not match. Why on earth are Kate and William suddenly a one-car family? Why wear false eyelashes and your hair in a chignon for a private ‘appointment’?

Was it even her head? It must have been taken off her profile during the walk to church on Christmas Day 2023 and ‘they’ only erased her earring. The brim of her hat is indeed clearly visible. ‘They’ are really bad at this.

Or is the shadowy profile in the car someone else – just look at the cheeks!

Ridiculous. But the image did alarm bells are ringing. For some, it confirmed that Kate had nothing to do with the photo debacle and that there is something serious is going on.

How had the cheerful, open, carefree woman you saw in that Mother’s Day photo changed into this distant enigma. She knows those snappers outside Windsor as well as her own cleaner – why didn’t she wave and smile as the car drove away?

That’s what shocked us the most. It just wasn’t like Kate: the sudden loss of the beaming, stoic goodwill we’ve come to expect.

That was the moment when anyone with any sense would blame the Palace – again – for not having a joint strategy, where everyone is on board.

But it was the moment that told me that Kate was uncooperative and that she had no hand in Photogate, but took the blame for it.

It’s her PR and communications team that would have picked it and released it with its bland, cheerful message, no doubt done carelessly because it was a weekend and maybe not real. Doing weekend work.

The Palace has known for decades that whatever they say will be believed. The late queen was trusted. This has made them arrogant. But today they face an army of millions of keyboard warriors: it is the wisdom of the crowd, made real and dangerous, instantaneous.

The now infamous photoshopped Mother’s Day image of the Princess of Wales and her children – the first public image of her since her operation

What has made me particularly angry are the headlines suggesting that the public is targeting Kate. The Sun surrendered its front page to the order ‘Leave Kate Alone’. On X we started seeing more and more tweets like: ‘The press killed Diana. Now they’re after Kate!’

But no one bullies the Princess of Wales. We are all on her side, just amazed and concerned.

It is Wales’ communications team that has thrown her – and to some extent William – under the bus.

Didn’t anyone remember to remind him to look attentive and loving in the car on his first outing with Kate since her surgery and Photogate? As for his performance at the Commonwealth Day Service, he didn’t even acknowledge the dancers and musicians playing happily outside.

If Wales’ PR team had completed their media studies and IT course at community college, they would have known that the way to put this to rest was for William to address the furore on Monday night when he gave a speech at the Earthshot Prize Launch Pad. He could have added a few funny references to the doctored family snapshot and we would have said, “Whew, everything’s fine!”

William’s seriousness at the moment, the drooping annoyance, the refusal to acknowledge our followers, shed light on his wife’s editing skills or lovingly and warmly reassure us about her health, fuels the wilder speculation on social media.

This could all have been averted, our concerns addressed, by a PR team that knew what it was doing – and Kate would not have been involved at all, but left to continue her recovery. Just make it clear with the people who fund you. It’s the least we deserve. This isn’t going away.