50 Fun Facts About British Politics

On which Commons occasion may the minister speaking drink alcohol, otherwise forbidden in the chamber?

The Budget is the one speech a Chancellor may deliver with a drink in hand: Geoffrey Howe chose gin and tonic and Gladstone sherry with a beaten egg, but Gordon Brown broke the habit with mineral water.

In 1938 the Woolsack, the seat of whoever presides over the Lords, was found to be stuffed with what?

Horsehair filled the seat meant to symbolise England's medieval wool trade, so the Woolsack was re-stuffed with a blend of wool from the British Isles and the Commonwealth.

At the State Opening of Parliament, an MP is held 'hostage' to guarantee whose safe return?

The sovereign. The hostage, usually a government whip who holds the post of Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, waits at Buckingham Palace and is released once the monarch is safely back.

What official title was given to Larry, Downing Street's cat since 2011?

Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office is Larry's title; recruited from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home under David Cameron, he has stayed put ever since and outlasted prime minister after prime minister.

The parliamentary 'whip' who keeps MPs voting with their party borrows the title from a role in which pursuit?

Hunting with hounds gave Parliament the 'whipper-in', the huntsman's assistant who drives straying hounds back into the pack; an MP who defies the party line can still 'lose the whip' and be cast out of it.

Which monarch was the last to refuse Royal Assent to a bill, vetoing the Scottish Militia Bill in 1708?

Queen Anne withheld assent on her ministers' advice: a French invasion fleet was reported sailing for Scotland, and they feared the new militia would prove disloyal. No monarch has refused a bill since.

What do MPs ceremonially do to a newly elected Speaker of the Commons?

They drag them to the chair. The show of reluctance is said to recall the days when the Speaker had to carry the Commons' opinions to a monarch who might not welcome them.

Which British political nickname began as an Irish word for outlaws who robbed English settlers?

Tory comes from the Irish for a pursuer and meant a bandit; around 1680 it was hurled at those who backed the Catholic Duke of York's right to the throne, and the insult stuck to the Conservatives.

What delayed the declaration of the July 1945 general election result until three weeks after polling day?

Votes from troops overseas had to be shipped home and counted. Churchill left the Potsdam Conference to hear the result on 26 July and never went back: Attlee returned in his place as prime minister.

Who in November 2014 became the first woman to serve as First Minister of Scotland, succeeding Alex Salmond?

Nicola Sturgeon had been Alex Salmond's deputy for a decade, and she was elected SNP leader unopposed after he resigned over the lost independence referendum.

Since 1935, every UK general election has been held on which day of the week?

Thursday is a convention, not a law. One common explanation is that it was market day in many towns, so voters were heading in anyway and could call at the polling station on the way.

Which territory outside the UK voted in the 2016 EU referendum, backing Remain by 96%?

Gibraltar was the only overseas territory inside the EU, so it had a vote, and 95.9% chose Remain. It left anyway: Leave won 51.9% across the UK, and David Cameron announced his resignation the next morning.

In 1988 the Liberal Party merged with which breakaway from Labour?

The Social Democratic Party had fought two general elections in alliance with the Liberals; the merged party was launched as the Social and Liberal Democrats and became the Liberal Democrats a year later.

Sinn Féin MPs stand for Westminster but never take their Commons seats, because doing so would require what?

Swearing allegiance to the King is required of every MP, and the party also rejects Westminster's jurisdiction in Northern Ireland, so its members stay away under a policy called abstentionism.

Who in 1919 became the first woman to sit in the Commons, winning her husband's former seat of Plymouth Sutton?

Nancy Astor, American-born, took over the seat when her husband Waldorf went up to the Lords; Constance Markievicz had been elected a year earlier but never took her seat.

Which former Tiller Girl dancer and Labour MP was elected the first woman Speaker of the Commons in 1992?

Betty Boothroyd beat a candidate from the governing party even though its MPs held the majority, then broke with centuries of custom by declining to wear the Speaker's wig.

Before the Supreme Court opened in 2009, the UK's most senior appeal judges were known collectively as what?

The Law Lords, formally the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, heard final appeals as a committee of the upper house; in October 2009 they became the first Supreme Court justices, ending Parliament's centuries as a court.

Which Supreme Court President announced the unanimous 2019 ruling that the prorogation of Parliament was unlawful?

Brenda Hale read out the eleven justices' verdict wearing a large spider brooch, and within days the brooch was being printed on T-shirts sold in aid of a homelessness charity.

Before adopting the name Senedd in May 2020, the Welsh legislature had been officially known as what?

National Assembly for Wales was the title from 1999, when the body could not pass laws of its own; the new name was chosen to reflect a full parliament with law-making powers and the ability to vary taxes.

What did Republic of Ireland voters amend on 22 May 1998, as Northern Ireland endorsed the Good Friday Agreement?

Their constitution. The Nineteenth Amendment let Ireland be bound by the Agreement and rewrite Articles 2 and 3, which had claimed the whole island as national territory; north and south voted on the same day.

Who in July 2024 became the first woman to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the office's 800-year history?

Rachel Reeves marked the change inside 11 Downing Street: she took down a portrait of the former Chancellor Nigel Lawson and hung one of Ellen Wilkinson, the Labour minister who marched with the Jarrow unemployed.

Sterling crashed out of which currency system on Black Wednesday in 1992, under Chancellor Norman Lamont?

The Exchange Rate Mechanism tied the pound to a band it could not hold once traders sold sterling faster than the Bank could buy it; Lamont raised rates to 12% before quitting the system that evening.

Who won Brighton Pavilion in 2010 to become the Green Party's first ever MP?

Caroline Lucas held the seat until 2024. In 2013, while its MP, she was arrested at an anti-fracking protest in the Sussex village of Balcombe, and a court later cleared her of every charge.

Who won the first election for Mayor of London in 2000, running as an independent after losing Labour's selection?

Ken Livingstone had led the Greater London Council until Margaret Thatcher's government abolished it in 1986, and he opened his victory speech: 'As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted 14 years ago.'

Who in 1987 became the first Black woman elected to the House of Commons?

Diane Abbott won Hackney North and Stoke Newington on the night Bernie Grant, Paul Boateng and Keith Vaz were also elected; Boateng ended his victory speech, 'Today Brent South, tomorrow Soweto!'

The House of Lords Act 1999 removed all but 92 of which members?

Hereditary peers. The 92 stayed under a compromise meant to be temporary, their vacancies filled by by-elections in which only hereditary peers could stand, and the arrangement lasted until a 2026 Act removed the last of them.

Enric Miralles, the architect of the Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood, came from which country?

Spain's Enric Miralles died in 2000 before the building opened in 2004, three years late and at an estimated £414 million against early estimates of £10m to £40m.

What happens to Northern Ireland's deputy First Minister when the First Minister resigns?

They also lose office automatically, because the two posts are a joint office: when Paul Givan quit in 2022, Michelle O'Neill ceased to be deputy First Minister the same day.

The 2011 referendum offering which system in place of first-past-the-post was rejected by 67.9% of voters?

The Alternative Vote, which lets voters rank candidates in order, was the referendum the Liberal Democrats won as their price for joining David Cameron's coalition, only for voters to reject it by more than two to one.

The Daily Mail branded the 1928 plan to let women vote at 21 a vote for whom?

Flappers. The paper's campaign against the 'flapper vote' failed, and the 1929 general election, the first in which women in their twenties could vote, went down as the Flapper Election.

Before each State Opening, the Yeomen of the Guard search Parliament's cellars, a ritual recalling which conspiracy?

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 is the reason, and the Yeomen are still paid for the search with a small glass of port.

Who actually writes the speech that the monarch reads from the throne at the State Opening of Parliament?

The prime minister and Cabinet draft it as the legislative agenda they want both Houses to agree to, so the monarch reads out plans that are not their own.

In the sitcom Yes Minister, what civil service rank does Sir Humphrey Appleby hold in Jim Hacker's department?

Permanent Secretary, a department's most senior official. Margaret Thatcher loved the show so much that in 1984 she acted in a sketch alongside its two stars.

What title goes to the longest continuously serving MP, whose one formal duty is to preside over electing a Speaker?

Father of the House goes by unbroken service, not age. MPs who arrived at the same election are ranked by who took the oath first, which is how Edward Leigh won the title in 2024 ahead of Jeremy Corbyn.

Which official has the Commons door slammed in their face at every State Opening of Parliament?

Black Rod. MPs shut out the Lords' messenger to show their independence from the Crown, and three knocks with the rod gain entry; from 2018 the knocking fell to Sarah Clarke, the first woman in the post.

Which Chancellor resigned in 1947 after telling a journalist about tax changes minutes before announcing them?

Hugh Dalton's off-the-cuff remark on his way into the chamber reached print before he had finished speaking, and he quit for leaking a secret he was about to announce anyway.

Which Chancellor died suddenly in July 1970, only a month after taking the post in Edward Heath's government?

Iain Macleod, credited with coining the word 'stagflation' in a 1965 Commons speech, died of a heart attack in 11 Downing Street after a month as Chancellor, and Anthony Barber took over.

Which prime minister created the post of Cabinet Secretary in 1916 to keep his new War Cabinet's records?

David Lloyd George. Until then the Cabinet had kept no agenda and no record of what it decided; at the new War Cabinet's first meeting Maurice Hankey sat down at the table and took the first official minutes.

Which Speaker broke a 310–310 tie on Brexit in April 2019 with the first casting vote in over 25 years?

John Bercow voted No, following a rule set by Speaker Denison in 1867: a Speaker keeps debate open where possible, but never creates a majority that MPs themselves have not found.

Until 2006, which Cabinet minister presided over the House of Lords?

The Lord Chancellor was at once a Cabinet minister, a senior judge and the Lords' presiding officer until a 2005 Act split the roles; peers then elected Helene Hayman as the first Lord Speaker.

Parliament's official report of debates is named after which printer, who took it over from William Cobbett?

Thomas Hansard. Cobbett, a radical journalist, was convicted of seditious libel in 1810, and the fines ruined him; in 1812 he sold the debates to the man who printed them, whose name has stuck ever since.

Who won the 1967 Hamilton by-election for the SNP and declared, 'Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on'?

Winnie Ewing lived to preside over the first sitting of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999 as its oldest member, telling it that the Parliament adjourned in 1707 'is hereby reconvened'.

Who in 1929 became Britain's first woman Cabinet minister, serving as Minister of Labour?

Margaret Bondfield had started work at 14 behind a draper's counter, and in her twenties she went undercover in shops to expose how staff were treated, before rising through the trade unions.

Gwynfor Evans, Plaid Cymru's first MP, threatened a hunger strike in 1980 to make the government deliver what?

A Welsh-language TV channel. Margaret Thatcher's government had gone back on its promise of one, then gave way before his fast was due to begin, and S4C went on air in 1982.

Robert Armstrong admitted being 'economical with the truth' in a 1986 Australian trial over which banned memoir?

Spycatcher. The British government lost its fight to stop the former MI5 officer Peter Wright's book, which sold over two million copies; Armstrong's cross-examiner, Malcolm Turnbull, later became Australia's prime minister.

Boris Johnson's 2019 election win was the first general election held in which month since 1923?

December. The last one had backfired: Stanley Baldwin called a snap poll in 1923 and lost his majority to a hung parliament, whereas Johnson's winter gamble won a majority of 80.

The 1979 Scottish devolution referendum won 51.6% of votes cast yet failed because of a rule demanding what?

40% of the whole electorate had to vote Yes, and only about a third did. Four weeks later the fallout brought down James Callaghan's government, which lost a confidence vote by a single vote.

The 'Gang of Four' who quit Labour in 1981 issued a founding declaration named after which London district?

Limehouse was simply where David Owen lived: the statement that he, Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams gave the press on 25 January 1981 took its name from his home there.

Which Conservative MP seized the Commons Mace in 1976 during a furious row over nationalising shipbuilding?

Michael Heseltine grabbed the Mace as Labour MPs sang The Red Flag after winning a knife-edge vote; accounts differ on whether he brandished it or mockingly offered it to them before Jim Prior took it off him.

Who in 2015 became the youngest MP since the Reform Act of 1832, elected for the SNP aged 20?

Mhairi Black unseated Douglas Alexander, Labour's shadow foreign secretary, while still a final-year student at Glasgow University, and had to finish her degree after polling day.