Citizen Kate

It’s less than two weeks to the wedding of the year. Allison Pearson looks at Kate Middleton and asks if she can save the royal family.

WHEN Catherine Elizabeth Middleton marries William Arthur Philip Louis Windsor, a prince of the royal blood, in Westminster Abbey on April 29, she will be scoring a number of firsts. Kate will be the first royal bride to have a university education, the first to live with her husband before marriage, the first to have a mother who used to be a flight attendant. Most impressively of all, Catherine will one day be the first queen of the realm to have fallen over at a roller disco in a pair of yellow hot pants.

Over eight long years as William’s girlfriend, that roller-rink tumble is one of the very few times she put a foot wrong. Whatever snobs may say about the suitability of the match, far from lowering the tone of the monarchy, the middle-class girl who endured the longest job interview in history could well save it.