| Comment | Received Pronounciation
Historically, it means the 'clipped' affected English accent that was used by BBC presenters up until the 1970s, but has been pretty much extinct since regional accents became acceptable in the media. The queen speaks 'old' RP.
Nowadays it's used to refer to any English accent which isn't clearly of a particular region, and as a result is associated with either posh folk/tories who have avoided their 'uncouth' local accent (hence the negative connotations of RP), but can also just be people who have grown up in urban areas like London that have a big mix of languages and accents. |
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