WHAT a flapdoodle that all was. One minute a leading novelist was delivering a high-minded lecture about how the public relates to royal women and the next she was accused of making an attack on the Duchess of Cambridge that was ‘venomous’ and ‘outrageous’.

Now that we’ve all had time to take a deep breath, the pillorying of Hilary Mantel is worth another look. And if on reflection this affair seems over-excited, that’s the way these things roll.

Here’s how the motion starts. Someone says something in one setting and then quotable extracts are served up naked and free from context.

So it was that Hilary Mantel was splashed across the papers for observing that the Duchess “appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss varnished”.

Provocative, perhaps – but this was part of one sentence from a long lecture for the London Review of Books, the stuffier sort of engagement and hardly something most people would even notice were it not written up in the headlines.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the drubbing she got, her talk was generally sympathetic to the Duchess, at least from the skimming I gave the lengthy version available on the internet (brevity not being a quality favoured by literary novelists).

Making mischief is part of what certain national newspapers do and this can be an important task. Without a bit of impish contrivance, some stories would not appear at all – and, for all the ridiculous heat that rose from this particular non-issue, the affair did have its benefits. It’s rather uplifting to live in a country where a literary novelist makes the headlines for a day or two.

Whether you find such reporting offensive or not is up to you. I accept it for what it is, but do find it irritating when the politicians pile in, as they always do. What a shame that the Prime Minister and his opposite number feel obliged to comment on every silly rumpus-causing headlines.

David Cameron duly obliged with the following: “[Mantel] is a brilliant writer but what she said about Princess Kate* is completely wrong”. In later interviews he added that the writer was “totally wrong and misguided”. But had he read a word of what Mantel said? Well, no – as confirmed when a spokesman told The Times: “The Prime Minister based his remarks on reports of what she said.”

So echo bounces off echo, and all sense is lost. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if a prime minister were instead to say something such as: “Sorry, haven’t a clue – ask me something else instead.”

It won’t happen, of course, as prime ministers run scared of saying the wrong thing. As, too, do leaders of the opposition, which is why Ed Miliband drearily felt the need to condemn Mantel’s “pretty offensive remarks”.

Is it too much to suggest our politicians try thoughtfulness for a change instead of giving dumb answers to loaded questions? Sadly, it probably is.

A parallel pattern of behaviour arises when politicians tell us about their tastes in music, presumably in an attempt to fool us into thinking that they are normal, regular people.

When David Cameron was on Desert Island Discs, he picked a song by The Smiths. The band’s former guitarist, Johnny Marr, recently said that he didn’t believe a word of it, and implied that Mr Cameron was striking a pose.

Possibly so – but nothing beats Gordon Brown saying that he liked to start the day with a blast of Arctic Monkeys, a choice of music that seemed the sharp side of unlikely. Can’t you just imagine Mr Brown saying to a trendy aide: “Ah, artic monkeys – didn’t I see one of those on that David Attenborough programme?”

“No, Gordon, they’re your favourite band.”

“Ah, I see.”


*Princess Kate – David Cameron used this jumbled form of address twice, which was odd. Even those of us who can barely raise a yawn on royal matters know that she is a Duchess.