A Picture of the Queen

So, some post graduate students at an Oxford college (Magdalene) voted to remove a photo of Her Majesty from their common room and the lunatic fringe of the right is in uproar.

It's a common room, not the entrance to the college. It's not an official stance by the college or the whole of Oxford, merely a small bunch of post-grads in one college.

If we're to be told what to hang in our common rooms, isn't that a bit North Korean? They had a vote, after all, and that's called democracy.

I have a suspicion that there's more to this than can be seen at first glance. They're post-grads, so they're not representative of the college. Those who know the college concerned maintain the common room in question is frequented by no more than about a couple of dozen post grads from a cohort of a couple of hundred - a very small group. There is a number of possibilities here:

1. They merely decided to replace the decor left by the previous inhabitants. Who doesn't change the decor a bit when moving into a new house? It had been there since 2013, after all. 
2. A large percentage of Oxford post grads are foreign and it's not beyond the bounds of reason that a large proportion are from the Commonwealth and resent a symbol of colonialism in their common room, as stated. 
3. They possibly are republicans, like myself, who abhor inherited privilege. Why can't I be King? Answer, because I wasn't born into a particular family. It's pure nepotism in an age of supposed merit.
4. They orchestrated this as a prank to watch the lickspittles run around like chickens with their heads cut off at the insult to Her Majesty. How would anyone have known about the story unless the students released it themselves?  
5. The students are engaged in a study into how the right wing press manipulates their readers and the results from the study will be published in a year or two, with a couple of the students gaining a PhD from it. This one's highly unlikely, given it's Magdelene College and its specialised subjects, although there is a department of politics.

I wonder how many of those who were commenting negatively actually have a photo of the Queen in their living rooms and, if not, why not? They also probably had no problem with Boris lying to Her Majesty (in my experience of social media, Royal fawners tend to be Brexiteers, Markle haters, those who don't like footballers making a peaceful anti-racist gesture and Boris sycophants).

Perhaps the government should we push for the creation of a new police department that visits our homes to ensure we all have a portrait of Her Majesty on our walls? The Royal Portrait Squad...