Kate smiles through ‘plastic’ row

As the debate raged on, Kate Midleton took it all in her stride.

Labelled a “shop-window mannequin” with no personality, whose only purpose is to breed, the duchess of Cambridge visited a treatment centre in south London, in her role as patron of Action on Addiction, to meet women who are rebuilding their lives as controversial novelist Hilary Mantel did her best to dismantle hers.

During a lecture at the British Museum, Mantel, the double Booker Prize winner, said Kate appeared to have been “gloss-varnished” with a perfect plastic smile, in contrast to Princess Diana, who she described as awkward and emotionally incontinent.

She said “painfully thin” Kate was selected for her role of princess because she posed no risk of showing any character.

Mantel’s remarks were made two weeks ago during a lecture at the British Museum, organised by London Review of Books, a month after her latest novel Bring Up the Bodies won the Costa prize.

She said: “Kate seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: As painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character.

“She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture.”

Mantel, whose latest novels are set in the Tudor court, said she saw Kate becoming a “jointed doll on which certain rags are hung”.

Before the announcement of Kate’s pregnancy, Mantel said, she “was a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore”.

“These days she is a mother-to-be, and draped in another set of threadbare attributions. Once she gets over being sick, the press will find that she is radiant.

“They will find that this young woman’s life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth.”

She also blasted Kate’s first official portrait by Paul Emsley, unveiled in January, labelling her eyes as “dead” and wearing “the strained smile of a woman who really wants to tell the painter to bugger off”.

A large media presence gathered outside the treatment centre, with satellite vans for broadcasters lining the road, and photographers standing three deep on the pavements.

Kate looking tanned after her Caribbean holiday, got a large cheer from well-wishers standing across the street from the centre.

Wearing a MaxMara dress, she shook hands with Nick Barton, Action On Addiction’s chief executive, before clasping her hands around her small baby bump.

The duchess made the gesture a number of times during the visit to the centre and seemed completely at ease with her growing figure.

Inside the centre, Kate confessed she is nervous about giving birth, as she showed off her baby bump for the first time at a public event.

Kate’s admission came as she chatted to a group of women recovering from drink and drug addictions at a treatment centre run by the charity.

She spent time with an arts therapy group at Hope House in Clapham, south London, where the centre’s clients had completed paintings charting their battle with substance abuse.

Lisa, a mother-of-three who did not want to give her full name, said: “I did ask her if she was nervous [about giving birth]. She said it would be unnatural if she wasn’t — she’s human like us.”

Kate also chatted to Natalie, who has a two-year-old daughter and is due to give birth to a second child in July — the same month as the duchess who is more than four months pregnant.

The 28-year-old said the talk also turned to babies when they chatted: “We’re due about the same time. She’s been unwell and feeling better now and I felt pretty much the same the first time.”

British prime minister David Cameron, who is in New Delhi on an official visit to India, defended the duchess.

Mr Cameron said of Mantel: “I think she writes great books, but I think what she’s said about Kate Middleton is completely misguided and completely wrong.”

The prime minister told the BBC: “What I’ve seen of Princess Kate at public events is that this is someone who’s bright, who’s engaging, who’s a fantastic ambassador for Britain.”