SO now we can no longer be done for using insulting words or behaviour. Which is a good job, given that we once had the ridiculous notion of a student facing prosecution for asking a police officer whether his horse was gay on the grounds that he was being homophobic.

To whom, I wonder. The horse? Presumably the animal suffered mightily as a result of the student’s “gross insensitivity, insolence or contemptuous rudeness” — to quote an online dictionary's definition of insulting – thus provoking Thames Valley Police’s then decision to throw 21-year-old Sam Brown into the cells for a night when charged under Section 5 of the Public Order Act for making homophobic remarks after he refused to pay an on-the-the-spot £80 fine.

Sensibly, the Crown Prosecution Service refused to proceed with the case.

A year later, a 16-year-old from Newcastle was fined £50 and ordered to pay £150 costs for saying “woof” to a Labrador in front of police officers. The magistrates’ decision to fine the teenager was later overturned by a crown court – more common sense in action.

But it’s taken more than half a decade for legislators to get their act together following a vigorous campaign, Feel Free To Insult Me, designed to reform Section 5 of the Act, under which it was left to others – the police, the courts – to decide whether you or someone else might feel insulted by words, posters or ideas, even if you actually didn’t.

Hence the nonsense that had police defending the “rights” of a horse labelled as gay and the poor Labrador dog that had to endure an over-exuberant teenager saying “woof!” to it.

But all the hullabaloo about what’s insulting and what isn’t – and it’s still possible to be prosecuted under the act for being threatening or abusive so despite Labour’s fears, I would have thought minority groups are still protected – has had me wandering off on a tangent about some of the most famous put-downs by politicians and others over the years.

Winston Churchill, of course, was a master. One of his most scathing insults was to Lady Astor who admonished him for being drunk.

He replied: “But I shall be sober in the morning and you, madam, will still be ugly…”

She tried to get the better of him by telling Churchill that if he were her husband she would put poison in his tea, only to be told: “Madam, if I were your husband, I’d drink it…”

Winston wit and repartee – or no doubt rudeness if you were on the receiving end – was probably outmatched by Will Rogers, an American vaudeville artist, actor and social commentator of the 1920s and 30s, who was revered by his fellow countryman for his informal and unpretentious style and his knack of getting to the crux of the matter, whatever that might be.

It was he who said that the one thing America does worse than any other nation it is to try and manage somebody else’s affairs. Eighty or 90 years later there are those who would wholeheartedly agree.

But that’s mild compared to his acerbic observations of politicians – “a fool and his money are soon elected” was one, along with “the trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected”.

Or how about: “I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” With the current shower in power – national or local, take your pick, regardless of which party they represent – that has a keen resonance.

Back at home Aneurin Bevin said of British prime minister Clement Attlee: “He brings to the fierce struggle of politics the tepid enthusiasm of a lazy summer afternoon at a cricket match.”

He also had a go at Neville “peace in our time” Chamberlain, saying that listening to a speech by him was like a trip to Woolworth’s – everything in its place and nothing above sixpence.

But the worst insult of all about an individual has to be this: "Filthy story-teller, despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster, ignoramus Abe, old scoundrel, perjurer, robber, swindler, tyrant, field-butcher, land-pirate…”

Such vitriol was penned in Harper’s Weekly, an American political journal that was the most widely read publication during the American Civil War, about Abraham Lincoln, who was the union’s 16th president before his assassination in 1865.

I think it's called freedom of speech. Though if anyone spoke in such a venomous vein about a lowly Labrador dog, no doubt they would have been clapped in irons and hauled up before the judge…