The ugly feeding frenzy over Kate in the U.S. proves the royals MUST be more transparent

THIS might come as a shock, but here in the UK newspapers and broadcast media still treat the Royal Family with a significant degree of respect. A blue ribbon of deference and restraint, a cushion of comfort afforded to few others, colours all reporting on their activities.

For the British royals and the British media, the rules of engagement are subtly different. In America, no such niceties exist. There is no demarcation between royalty and celebrity. And in America at the moment, the gauntlets are off.

Lurid gossip has been published in U.S. newspapers based on nothing more than speculation. On popular chat shows — programmes watched by millions — our royals have been discussed and openly mocked.

There has been much ridicule of the Mother’s Day photograph taken of the Princess of Wales and gleeful mockery of the vast, ongoing Katespiracy regarding her lack of public appearances.

The Washington Post published a Home Alone- style cartoon of Prince William holding a cardboard cutout of his wife in front of a Palace window.

Once more, it is open season on the Wales’s, just like it was more than 30 years ago. How did we get here so quickly?

In January Kate was merely recuperating from abdominal surgery. By February, online conspiracy theorists on both sides of the Atlantic started filling the news void with ever more lurid conjectures.

Come March there was a snap of

■ A £550-A-HEAD Michelin starred restaurant in the U.S. faces a backlash over claims it serves smaller portions to female customers. Sushi Noz in New York City has been accused of offering smaller versions of its omakase menu to the little ladies. Is that really sexist? To be fair, a lot of my female friends do have the appetite of a bird. Only that bird just happens to be a vulture.

a seemingly miserable Kate and William gazing out in opposite directions from inside a car.

Uh oh, I thought, fomenting a conspiracy theory all of my own. We have been here before. How long before Kate is solo posing on a bench by the Taj Mahal?

The problem for Palace courtiers and communications teams in the modern age is that they have little control over the narrative. And to cope with the onslaught of the online rumour machine they are going to have to be more — not less — transparent.

Because anyone can find out the worst of the gossip at the click of a computer key. For out on the wilder shores of cyberspace, there are no borders or barriers, nor warm pools of royal veneration.

The time when royals in crisis could scuttle behind a nice big rock, like a family of shy velvet crabs, has long gone.

What has changed so much? It could be argued that it is partly because of online engagement that the public feel so invested — and why not, for they are encouraged to do so by the Windsors themselves.

The chummy royal Instagram accounts, the official websites, the very fact that the Princess of Wales felt the need — innocent as it was — to retouch a family photograph of her children to make it more appealing.

Yet the rush to be relatable has its drawbacks.

The difficulty is that now, for keyboard surfers as well as American chat- show hosts, everything is entertainment. No distinction is made between tragedy or triumph, between fiction and real life.

CAST your minds back to the disappearance of Nicola Bulley a year ago; a tragic event which gave a chilling glimpse into how certain sections of the public consumed news events — primarily as an enjoyable online game of Cluedo.

It resulted in a morally queasy fiasco in which some people joined in the police search (uninvited) and made wild accusations about Bulley’s death and the possible involvement of members of her family. It was all a nonsense, of course. An inquest found that hers was an accidental death and the circus moved on, leaving a family in tatters.

That terrible level of intensity is echoed here, with no let-up in sight, as the mushroom cloud of panting speculation and conspiracy theories gets bigger and bigger. Who can manage it? Who can even survive it?

If gossip is news running ahead of itself in an ermine cloak and crown, then things are going to get worse before they get better. A little clarity from the royals would go a long way to assuage the worst of the rumours, but there is no sign of that happening any time soon. Into this void, a fever burns.

The core of conspiracism is the belief that innocent justifications do not exist and any coincidences, however unlikely, must be shot down in righteous flames.

While the British media patrol the zone of interest with care and consideration, the rest of the world looks on and laughs.

The time when they could scuttle behind a nice big rock, like a family of shy velvet crabs, has long gone