When, over the years, the Princess of Wales has been criticised, it’s usually been for somehow lacking character or seeming too ‘bland’.
Mocked as ‘Waity Katy’ for the time she spent waiting for Prince William to propose, Catherine was, later, unkindly described by historical author Hilary Mantel as a ‘shop-window mannequin with no personality of her own’.
When Catherine does get involved in campaigns, such as her crusade to highlight the unique importance of children’s early years, our future queen is met with a shrug of the shoulders by some people and outright criticism by others.
Some claimed, for example, that choosing to campaign on childhood development was not just inoffensive, but one where it would be hard to make much difference.
Others, such as Sussex biographer and cheerleader Omid Scobie, went further. Scobie claimed that Catherine’s campaign ‘exposes the ineffectiveness that the Royal Family’s charity work can have’. He suggested it would be ‘almost impossible’ for her to make any impact.
Now, however, Catherine is being criticised for the complete opposite: for being too radical.
Last week, she called for ’empathy’ for those hooked on gambling, alcohol and drugs in a message for Addiction Awareness Week.
The princess is patron of the Forward Trust, a charity devoted to helping addicts. And she made this controversial statement: ‘Addiction is not a choice or a personal failing.’
She added: ‘Even now in 2025, people’s experience of addiction is shaped by fear, shame and judgment. This needs to change.’
Her intervention unleashed a torrent of criticism, with Theodore Dalrymple, a former prison doctor and psychiatrist, writing in The Daily Telegraph: ‘I am sure that HRH meant well and that she feels genuine sympathy for addicts. But unfortunately, her view is simple, unsophisticated, dehumanising and empirically false.
‘It is dehumanising because, by denying that addiction is a choice, it deprives addicts of their agency both in theory and to a certain extent in practice.’
He added: ‘Such a view is implicitly degrading, demeaning and far from compassionate.’
My esteemed colleague at the Daily Mail, Peter Hitchens, was even more scathing. ‘Whatever happened to royal neutrality?’ he asked.
The columnist claimed that Catherine, as well as William and her father-in-law, King Charles, had ‘keenly joined the side of the liberal Left, starting with the global warming frenzy and now moving on to the disastrous appeasement of the drugs lobby’.
He continued: ‘The wicked, destructive idea that we are all powerless to fight against bad choices is the basis of our current accelerating slide into disorder. It has smashed our moral system and turned criminal justice into a cardboard fake.
‘When someone of the standing of the Princess of Wales endorses this fashionable bilge, where can the rest of us turn? If the Crown spurns the views of decent, responsible citizens who don’t prey on their fellow creatures or blame others for their crimes, we are alone.’
Such criticism illustrates just how brave it is of Catherine to make public interventions on subjects she feels strongly about.
Like William, she has chosen to become patron of far fewer charities and good causes than did previous members of the Royal Family such as Queen Elizabeth, who was the figurehead of more than 600.
Instead of being just a name on a letterhead, Catherine wants to become deeply involved in organisations such as the Forward Trust, for which she made the comments about addiction.
Far from taking a ‘dehumanising’ approach, as Dalrymple suggests, the charity works in prisons and other neglected, unfashionable areas to help users leave their addictions behind.
The statement ‘addiction is not a choice, or a personal failing’ is clearly referring to an underlying predisposition.
The Forward Trust works to help people who have chosen to fight their addiction. When they succeed, they can save the NHS, the criminal justice system and social services millions in taxpayers’ money across the life of a single addict.
As a friend of Catherine’s told me: ‘The Forward Trust has changed the lives of thousands of people blighted by addiction. What Her Royal Highness is trying to do is get rid of the stigma of addiction so people are not ashamed to seek help. If that means she will face more criticism, she’s willing to take that risk.’
