# Are people in the UK jailed for "insulting the Queen"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 11, 2015, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648 "2015-09-11T04:12:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/61 "2015-09-12T19:10:30Z")
> [@madsircool](#):
>
> Can I be a British adjective?
Finally, I understand why they need grammar schools in the United Kingdom!
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### Author:  [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2015, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/62 "2015-09-12T20:22:16Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#):
>
> British subject status is very uncommon these days. The bulk of the small number of people who are British subjects will be elderly and of Irish background.
>
> [Types of British nationality: British subject - GOV.UK](https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality/british-subject)
Huh, thanks. But I still want to be a British subject for purposes of the hypothetical.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2015, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/63 "2015-09-12T20:41:05Z")
> [@WotNot](#):
>
> That was Elsie Orrin, and her offence wasn’t “insulting Churchill”, but “making statements likely to cause alarm and despondency” during a time of war.
Well, you can’t have people saying things that could produce alarm and despondency. What if someone on a bus had been overheard saying they thought Germany was winning the war?
Too great a risk.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/64 "2015-09-12T23:22:45Z")
> [@TSBG](#):
>
> What is the Queen insults ME? I’m not a British subject, but let’s say I am. Can I slap her with a white glove?
You mean challenging her to guns at 10 paces?
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### Author:  [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2015, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/65 "2015-09-12T23:26:11Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> You mean challenging her to guns at 10 paces?
I mean, if that’s the protocol, so be it. And look out, Lizzie!
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/66 "2015-09-12T23:46:35Z")
No offense meant toward your marksman skills, but if it came to that, I think I’d put my money on the old girl.
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/67 "2015-09-13T00:04:39Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> No offense meant toward your marksman skills, but if it came to that, I think I’d put my money on the old girl.
She knows her way round an automatic weapon [http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2012/05/queen2-460x287.jpg](http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2012/05/queen2-460x287.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/68 "2015-09-13T04:23:24Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> No offense meant toward your marksman skills, but if it came to that, I think I’d put my money on the old girl.
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#):
>
> She knows her way round an automatic weapon [http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2012/05/queen2-460x287.jpg](http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2012/05/queen2-460x287.jpg)
Did she have to learn to shoot any weapons during World War II when she was in the ATS?
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### Author:  [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/69 "2015-09-13T06:46:25Z")
I concede that QE2 is likely to win a duel, especially one involving automatic weapons; but remember she insulted me. This is no way to run a kingdom.
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### Author:  [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/70 "2015-09-13T07:03:41Z")
The word on the street is that the new Leader of the Opposition in the Commons, Jeremy Corbyn, is set to refuse membership of Her Majesty’s Privy Council as he is an avowed republican. A stupid idea IMO, but nobody’s going to force him…
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/71 "2015-09-13T08:24:27Z")
> [@TSBG](#):
>
> What is the Queen insults ME? I’m not a British subject, but let’s say I am. Can I slap her with a white glove?
She would just sentence you to be hanged, drawn, and Corgied. The death of a thousand wounds, all of them on your ankles.
> [@Malden\_Capell](#):
>
> The word on the street is that the new Leader of the Opposition in the Commons, Jeremy Corbyn, is set to refuse membership of Her Majesty’s Privy Council as he is an avowed republican. A stupid idea IMO, but nobody’s going to force him…
He leans republican, but isn’t willing to do anything about it politically. She could put him on Her Majesty’s Council for the Privies if he slights her.
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### Author:  [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/72 "2015-09-13T08:37:30Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> She could put him on Her Majesty’s Council for the Privies if he slights her.
For a more individual punishment she could just reestablish the Groom of the Stool:
> **[Groom of the Stool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_of_the_Stool)**
>
> The Groom of the Stool (formally styled: "Groom of the King's Close Stool") was the most intimate of an English monarch's courtiers, initially responsible for assisting the king in excretion and hygiene.
> The physical intimacy of the role naturally led to his becoming a man in whom much confidence was placed by his royal master and with whom many royal secrets were shared as a matter of course. This secret information—while it would never have been revealed, for it would have led to the discred...
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### Author:  [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/73 "2015-09-13T08:43:06Z")
> [@RobDog](#):
>
> For a more individual punishment she could just reestablish the Groom of the Stool:
>
> [Groom of the Stool - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_of_the_Stool)
Wow. This sounds depraved.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/74 "2015-09-13T10:04:36Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#):
>
> A case from the Netherlands: "he called Queen Beatrix a “whore” and told a police officer that he would have "
But that pretty clearly falls in to the catagory “offending a policeman”. Queen Beatrix was just incidental to the offense.
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### Author:  [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/75 "2015-09-13T10:05:18Z")
Joking aside though, that wouldn’t work as a punishment, what with the position being regarded as an honour.
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2015, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/76 "2015-09-13T12:15:30Z")
Curiously, there is still a certain doubt about the technical legal position in regard to republican campaigning. The Treason Felony Act makes it a criminal offence to imagine depriving the monarch of his/her throne, and it appears to be still on the statute book. But then, so are all sorts of nonsenses that no-one takes any notice of.
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### Author:  [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2015, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-in-the-uk-jailed-for-insulting-the-queen/730648/77 "2015-11-14T11:41:18Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#):
>
> The word on the street is that the new Leader of the Opposition in the Commons, Jeremy Corbyn, is set to refuse membership of Her Majesty’s Privy Council as he is an avowed republican. A stupid idea IMO, but nobody’s going to force him…
He never said that, just that he couldn’t attend the first available investiture ceremony due to prior commitments. Cameron did the same. The press then turned it into one of their many lies about Corbyn.
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