‘Ball-breaker’: Kate Middleton’s surprise power move

While the world has been watching Prince Harry, the Princess of Wales has made a major power play.

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February 12, 2023 - 6:14AM

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The history of the British monarchy is filled with glorious, impressive “ball breakers.”

Empress Matilda was meant to be the first Queen until her cousin and his sexist 12th century views got in the way so she waged a 19-year bloody war for the throne. Queen Elizabeth I saw off the Spanish Armada and any number of blokes trying to trap her into marriage; and Queen Victoria oversaw the nation’s emergence into the modern age and the flushing toilet. (You imagine that any man who told Queen Vic to smile more would have been sent to the most desolate penal colony.)

It’s all wonderfully feminist stuff (even if Victoria was horrified by women’s suffrage) and I’m here to inform you that future Queen Kate of the Zara Blazer looks set to follow in their bolshie, proto-feminist footsteps.

Kate Middleton, known as the Duchess of Cornwall while in Cornwall, at the UK coastal area’s Dracaena Centre this month. Picture: Ben Birchall-WPA Pool/Getty Images

Over the past couple of weeks, the Princess of Wales has been busy unveiling a revamped, rejigged and re-energised image – and even has the designer powersuits to prove it.

In a plot twist that seemed nigh on impossible during the endless years of her appropriate line-toeing and posy-accepting, Kate has, in recent months, been in the midst of the biggest and boldest rebranding effort we have seen yet.

The royal WAG is today a woman who has achieved something more important that relaunching the shirtdress and popularising Mustique, with the ramping up of her, as she has called it, “life’s work” focused on early childhood development.

In 2021, she founded the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood replete with more academics and overly qualified nerdish types than a Dungeons and Dragons convention.

Earlier this year, Kate strode onto the stage in London, wearing a $4,500 Alexander McQueen blazer so sharply cut it might have caused her husband Prince William injury, to announce the latest push. Called Shaping Us, the aim is “to raise awareness of the vital role our early years play in shaping the rest of our lives,” as she posted on social media, amid a nationwide advertising campaign across cinemas and billboards.

Launching Shaping Us in a sharp suit last month. Picture: Eddie Mulholland – WPA Pool/Getty Images

(This is the point where I will enthusiastically remind you, with some eager hand waving, that Kate’s early years work is not all about getting organic playdough into more preschools but getting to the heart of the causes of mental health issues, addiction and homelessness.)

But the most eyebrow-raising sign of just how seriously Kate is taking her professional overhaul and how intent she clearly is on dialling things up a notch is her choice of a new private secretary. Traditionally, Whitehall sorts are tapped for these royal roles, that is government types who also happen to know their way around an Alice band and the Henley regatta.

Instead, this week it was announced that the princess has tapped branding and marketing whiz Alison Corfield, who formerly spearheaded Jamie Oliver’s free school meals campaign. As a source told the Times, Corfield is “an unusual fit” and “a bit out there for Kensington Palace,” however promised, “she will run rings around the courtiers and shake things up a bit.”

Someone who has worked with Corfield described her as “a ball-breaker, a real straight-talker, very passionate, dynamic and genuinely funny. She makes things happen and will really push things forward at the palace.”

Oh, goodie! I, for one, absolutely love the sound of her.

Prince William wondering if he’ll get a papercut from Kate’s sharply tailored suit. Picture: Ed Mulholland/Pool/AFP

However, what is so intriguing here is not imagining how raucous Friday afternoon palace drinks are going to be with Corfield in the mix (‘more pinot grigio Your Highness? Oooh, go on!’) but what her appointment signals about Kate’s future plans as she starts this new chapter.

Basically, Kate is not here to play around the edges of some naiiiiiice charity work but to shake things up and to effect real, positive change in the UK.

Having spent the first decade coming to grips with tiara wearing and not yawning in front of minor Albanian dignitaries at Buckingham Palace do’s, Kate is now formulating a professional agenda of her own.

According to a number of reports, it was Kate who was instrumental in realising that the linchpin of the work that she, William and then loyal foot soldier Prince Harry would do was within he area of mental health, leading to the formation of their wonderfully radical (for the royal family at the time) mental health organisation, Head’s Up in 2016.

In the years since then, coincidentally the same period during which she and William transitioned to full-time royal duties, she has, year on year, cranked up the seriousness and profile of her early years work.

Now, with the arrival of Corfield, it seems likely we’re going to see it all gloriously escalate and grow.

As a royal insider told the Telegraph this week:

“What the Princess of Wales is doing is a very clear sign that she is redefining herself now that she has this new role. She is extremely strategic and methodical, and she takes her work very seriously.”

According to the source, while Kate “comes across as a warm and gentle character,” in fact, “at her core” she is also fiercely committed to utilise her position for good.

#winning Kate is “fiercely committed to utilise her position for good”. Picture: Ben Birchall-WPA Pool/Getty Images

With the passing of the Queen last year, the Waleses are now that much closer to their own time on the throne and the next decade or two represent Kate’s chance to really make gains in this field and to be able to focus on her legacy-defining program before she is expected to start that Queening business.

When William accedes to the throne in due course, Kate’s diplomatic and international workload and responsibilities will only grow more demanding, meaning that she has a limited window of opportunity to really knock heads together and change hearts, minds and maybe even government funding.