Here’s a question: would you say Kate Middleton is powerful.

Presumably the retailers who see every style she wears sell out in hours or the marketeers who use her to sell Britain around the world would argue she carries a certain amount of weight, marketing-wise, but the compilers of an annual list of the 100 most powerful women in the UK have courted controversy by passing over Kate in their list – despite naming the Queen in first place, followed by the UK’s Home Secretary Theresa May in second.

JK Rowling, Adele and Victoria Beckham also make the cut in the list compiled for the BBC radio show Women's Hour.

Journalist Eve Pollard told The Daily Telegraph: “Inevitably not everyone will agree with the 100 we have chosen. There are some omissions. For example, we had long debates about the Duchess of Cambridge. Is she influential? Hugely. Is she powerful? Not yet.”

That rather depends if you are in the business of selling clothes (or Britain), in which case you’d have to agree she is surely one of the most powerful people in the land.