Just to stick my 2 pence worth in, but some of you seem to be mixing up the two meanings of the 'V sign' hand gesture.
Prior the second world war, the V sign was used as an offensive gesture often to a fighting opposition, this is believed to originated from the Battle of Agincourt when the French announced that when they won the battle, they would celebrate by cutting off the two arrow positioning fingers of the English longbow men. However the French were unvictorious in the battle, this resulted in the English adopting a winning salute, a two fingered gesture to the French, showing they still had their arrow fingers and they'd won the battle. The two fingered, palm in gesture was carried on from this point for hundreds of years, adopting a meaning with it of 'up yours' (offensive to an opposition) along the way.
During the Second world War, a Belgian BBC broadcaster set out a plan for a 'V for Victory campaign' recommending that people of northern France and Belgium should show a V sign (meaning we will be Victorious) to the occupier in their country. This was could have been paint on a wall for instance or shown a two fingered palm out hand gesture.
The BBC spread this campaign across occupied Europe and Britain and was eventually given it's approval by Sir Winston Churchill in the summer of 1941.
However, Churchill added to the original Victory palm out gesture by turning his hand around slightly to add the original offensive 'up yours' to the Victory sign. Although he would still mainly use the palm out gesture just meaning 'V for Victory'
So there you have it,
1. the PALM OUT, two fingered gesture meaning 'V for Victory' a WWII campaign carried out against the occupier, started within the BBC.
2. the offensive PALM IN, two finger hand gesture, hundreds of years old. (and used by Churchill during WWII, adding slight offence to the occupier during the Victory Campaign)
You can take the two fingered V sign as you like, but for me and no doubt Baroness Trumpington, an offensive action will get an offensive reaction, which will normally be 'up yours'
