It was meant to be a grand State Banquet in honour of the president of Nigeria and his wife. A display of pomp and ceremony, business as usual, with senior royals in attendance at Windsor Castle, topped off, after a lavish meal with canapes and mocktails, with the release of a brand new Official Portrait of the Prince and Princess of Wales in all their finery. What was not to like?

Well, quite a lot, if the comments readers left below our online coverage on Thursday morning are anything to go by. The reactions to the rather stiff, formal photograph of William and Catherine – she in Diana’s tiara, wearing a gown in Nigerian green by celebrity designer Andrew Gn – were far from glowing.

One asked: ‘And this benefits the British public, how?’

‘Another taxpayer-funded knees-up for the elite,’ came another, adding: ‘They are not hanging about spending our money this year.’

And: ‘Those are waxworks, aren’t they?’

‘Criminal, given all that is going on in the world.’

To be frank, the commentators have not got it wrong. Is this really the right time for a State Banquet, with photos posted online of the elaborate, over-the-top tablescaping that would put Downton Abbey to shame? This, when ordinary Brits already weighed down by the cost of living, worry about what is to come in the Middle East and how it will affect their energy bills, food shop and mortgages.

And do we really need yet another ‘Official Portrait’, this one taken by a young Nigerian-born photographer, Christianah Ebenezer? Perhaps the Palace thought that the wide grins of the Prince and Princess of Wales would gloss over the Royal Family’s tone-deaf roboticism of recent weeks.

I imagine Kate’s face must be aching with all the performative gurning. There the couple were at the recent Baftas, failing to read the room that was more concerned with their Uncle Andrew’s arrest. Facing accusations of misconduct in public office, his homes had been searched and his emails scoured, yet on the Waleses ploughed.

There was Kate again, beaming as she handed out shamrocks to members of the Irish Guards and their Irish wolfhound mascot on St Patrick’s Day. But who cares? Is this the most urgent thing she could think to spend time on?

William, too, has been out and about in public: most notably, he appeared on a podcast to discuss his own male mental anguish when serving as a search and rescue pilot. Yet a heartfelt statement expressing support for the victims of Andrew’s friend, the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, came there none. Merely expressing your agreement for King Charles’s terse statement following Andrew’s arrest does not cut the mustard. 

William and Kate’s down-with-the-people routine – ordinary, relatable, open and honest about mental health, cancer, being parents – rings hollow when they keep schtum over a senior member of their family behaving badly.

It isn’t enough to shun their cousins Eugenie and Beatrice – which amounts to little more than banning the sisters from royal carriage rides at Ascot and Sandringham Christmases. Oh, boo hoo. Those privileges mean nothing to the rest of us.

The Royal Family is in crisis and William and Kate are behaving like ostriches. They need to step up, stop hiding behind medals, jewels and portrait photographers. Being a senior royal, our future monarchs, means more than rubbing shoulders with Leo DiCaprio at the Baftas as though nothing has changed. Because everything has changed: we need reassurance, gravitas, action, real consequences. What did you know and when? And why did you do nothing about the Andrew problem until your hands were forced?

It’s little wonder that people are beginning to see William and Kate as mannequins – and not just in their Official Portrait.

Show us how worried you are. Tell us how sorry you are. Stop being myopic. You are young parents; you have a daughter, for goodness’ sake. The time for ceremony and protocol is over, because you need to be frank with us: we can take it!

As one commentator wrote of the couple’s appearance in the new official photo: ‘The Royal Ken and Barbie.’ Now is the time to show us you are not made of plastic. That you are made of steel.