One thing I haven’t missed this year is the collective delusion of royal reporters trying to pretend that the Princess of Wales’s Early Years busywork is groundbreaking, important or substantive. Kate has been trying to make “I’m a credible expert on the Early Years” into a thing for six years, the start of which coincided with the Duchess of Sussex’s substantive projects. They wanted Kate to have a “thing” too and Kate needed to look busy. So we’ve had to watch as Kate has spent years spinning her wheels with fakakta surveys and fancy “studies,” all of which remarkably come to the same conclusion: that people don’t know that the Early Years are important, and Kate must spread awareness of their importance. Speaking of, we’ve gotten an update on Kate’s “work,” which everyone swears she’s been monitoring from home.

The Princess of Wales is today revealed as the ‘driving force’ behind a new report calling on businesses to introduce more family-friendly working practices. Her Royal Foundation Business Taskforce for Early Childhood has unveiled a major new report which argues that investing in early childhood could generate more than £45.5 billion for the national economy each year.

Downing Street, as well as senior ministers in the departments of health and education, have already been briefed about its findings – although palace officials are at pains to point out that it is not a political campaign.

A Kensington Palace spokesman also stressed that the news should not be seen as Kate, 42, returning to work after undergoing major abdominal surgery and revealing she was undergoing ‘preventative chemotherapy’ for cancer. She has not undertaken public engagements at all this year. But they confirmed that she has been across every aspect of the report from home, despite her illness.

Her spokesman said: ‘The work of The Prince and Princess’ projects is “always on”…early childhood is a huge priority for The Princess and so she has been kept fully updated throughout the development of the Taskforce’s work and she has seen the report. ‘

A senior royal aide added: ‘The Princess of Wales was the driving force behind the business task force. She has been kept up to date since the inception of the task force and she has read the report and been briefed on it. This is a clear commitment she has made that throughout her life of public service that this will be focus. That will continue when she returns to work. But we have been really clear that she needs the space and the privacy to recover right now. She will return to work when she has had the green light from doctors.’

A source close to the Princess said: ‘She is excited about it. Action is so important for her, so having eight of the most important businesses in Britain come forward to make the case to their fellow business leaders is exciting to her. It’s a priority going forward.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Kate’s Centre for Early Childhood, Buttons and Gopher Wiglets really funded a landmark study which shows that businesses should adopt family-friendly working practices. That’s it. That’s the sum total of a year of research, surveys, busywork and manhours. What’s also funny to me is that Kate’s staff and her new private secretary are desperate to do something and make it sound like Kate is doing something, but they also want to ensure that absolutely no one expects to see or hear from Kate. “Kate’s working on this, we promise, but no, we will not answer any questions about her health, nor should you expect to see her any time soon.” Saturday will be the five-month anniversary of the last time Kate was credibly seen in public. She’s not scheduled to attend any of the upcoming events in June either.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red, Kensington Palace.