The quiz that flummoxed (some) BBC colleagues
The perfect way to ruin Christmas
My last act in Westminster this year was to host a short quiz for BBC Millbank colleagues in a pub just up the road from parliament and our offices.
It’s hard to know how to pitch a quiz for political obsessives, and by general consensus it was quite hard. Some might say too hard.
Anyway, if you have nothing better to do over the next few days, or need to kill half an hour with political obsessives in your own life, go for it.
Picture round above is 20 points. The questions below total 25, giving a possible grand total of 45.
Good luck.
CONSTITUENCY LINKS
What links Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, Dover and Ashfield?
What links North West Essex, Doncaster North, Richmond and Ebbw Vale?
What links Chorley, Bootle, Liverpool Walton, Liverpool West Derby, and Knowsley?
What links Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, Bristol North West, and Central Suffolk and North Ipswich?
What links Sheffield Heeley, Yeovil, and Caerphilly?
HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?
Which is the lowest: the number of votes Keir Starmer got in 2024, the number of votes Neil Kinnock got in 1992 or the number of votes Jim Callaghan got in 1979?
Which is lower: the number of seats the Conservatives won in 2024, the number of women elected in 2024, the number of new MPs elected in 2024
Which is lower: the number of votes in the 2024 general election for Sinn Fein, the SNP or Plaid Cymru?
Which is lower: the number of votes cast in a general election for Reform UK in 2024, for the Brexit Party in 2019 or for UKIP in 2015?
Which is lower: votes cast in 2024 election for Count Binface in Richmond, Yorkshire, the number of votes cast The Mitre pub in Richmond, South West London, or the number of votes cast for Elmo in Holborn and St Pancras?
MEDIA MATTERS
Who said they "never liked" Tunbridge Wells and "I'd quite happily live somewhere else"?
Who said Kamala Harris “will win comfortably… Ignore polls—they’re herding, after past misses”?
Who wrote: “Whisper it, but Rishi Sunak is making an extraordinary comeback” nine days after the election was called?
Who wrote: Morgan McSweeney and Pat McFadden met in McFadden’s garden in north London and drank tequila?
Which podcaster said: “Starmer needs to shed a few pounds and that would be an improvement”?
THE REST OF THE WORLD
In Russian elections in March, Vladimir Putin supposedly secured what percentage of the vote: 68, 78, 88, 98%?
How many people have been prime minister of France this year?
Who is the president of South Korea who tried, briefly, to impose martial law?
Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence triggering elections in Germany. He is the first chancellor of the Federal Republic not to be a member of a what?
Kanye West is a constituency contested this year in elections to the National Assembly of which landlocked African country, which borders South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe?
THE REAL WORLD (because it is still out there)
Which author won the Booker Prize this year?
Who won Traitors this year?
Which country won Eurovision this year?
Which team won the Premier League in 2023/24?
What is the 2024 Christmas number one on the official chart?
You can find the answers over on my website
If you can’t get enough quizzing in your life, can I recommend Matt Chorley’s Westminster Christmas Ding Dong. Politicians vs journalists to see if they paid as much attention to the news as Keir Starmer did to the Taylor Swift tour. It’s fast, funny and more sweary than I expected. Listen on BBC Sounds.
I have also written a short piece about my first four months on BBC Radio Five Live, which have been a total joy. Sorry to disappoint. No complaints at all. They said politics would get boring. As if
Just in case you need a gift for someone who likes politics… Planes, Trains and Toilet Doors is perfect. Obvs.