Tawdry pictures. But Kate's role is itself demeaning

 

It is, you might think, no excuse for this icky speculation that Kate actively signed up for traditional reproductive services as she did not for topless photography in France, and that no palace functionary has complained that the obsession with her impregnation sets the clock back by 500 years. Even if she is a respected Middleton professional doggedly doing her duty, the speculation is dodgy and potentially, were nothing to emerge, cruel. To date, however, radio phone-ins have not gone mad with indignation, media specialists have not distanced themselves from their stomach-examiner colleagues and a Mr Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the London Evening Standard and the Independent, has not vented, along with hundreds of others on Twitter, about "gutter press morality". The main objection to the photographs in Closer is that they were taken somewhere – minus, obviously, their staff and protection officers – where the couple had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

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Tawdry pictures. But Kate's role is itself demeaning | Catherine Bennett | Comment is free | The Observer: