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Revealed: how Jeremy Corbyn could avoid kissing the Queen’s hand

With Jeremy Corbyn accepting an invitation to join the Privy Council, the republican will have to kneel before the Queen and kiss her on the hand when he takes the position. Of course this is unlikely to go down well with his far-left supporters, as well as the man himself — who today appeared to refrain from singing God Save the Queen at the Battle for Britain memorial service.

So Mr S suspects that Corbyn may wish to take a leaf out of Tony Benn’s book on this one. In a Radio 4 series, Benn discussed his political diaries, including samples of the original recordings from which he had first dictated entries onto his dictaphone.

In one intriguing entry from 11th June 1975, he describes a reshuffle where all the ministers who were changing position had to hand over the seals of state.

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