50 Fun Facts About British Politics

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

The Budget is the one speech during which the Chancellor may drink whatever they wish: past choices include Geoffrey Howe's gin and tonic and Kenneth Clarke's whisky.

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

Horsehair had replaced the wool, so the Woolsack was re-stuffed with wool from the British Isles and 15 Commonwealth countries as a symbol of Britain's trade routes.

At the State Opening of Parliament, an MP is kept 'hostage' at Buckingham Palace to guarantee whose safe return?

The sovereign's safety is the point: the hostage is usually the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, a whip, who is released once the monarch is back at the palace.

What official title was given to Larry, the tabby cat who moved into 10 Downing Street in 2011?

Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office is Larry's title; a stray from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, he arrived in 2011 under David Cameron and went on to outlast 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; the political sense was first recorded in 1772.

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

Queen Anne vetoed the Scottish Militia Bill on the advice of her ministers, and no bill backed by a British government has been refused assent since.

What do MPs ceremonially do to a newly elected Speaker of the Commons, who must show reluctance at being chosen?

They drag them to the chair, a custom from the days when six former Speakers were executed between 1471 and 1535, mostly for what they did in later offices.

The nickname 'Tory', still used for Conservatives, entered English in the 1600s as a word for what?

Irish outlaws who robbed English settlers were the original tories, from the Irish tóraí meaning pursuer; it became a political label during the Exclusion Crisis of 1678 to 1681.

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, so a poll held on 5 July was not counted until 26 July, when Labour's landslide emerged.

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

Nicola Sturgeon was elected SNP leader unopposed and became the first woman to hold either post, staying in office until 2023.

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

Thursday has been polling day at every general election since 1935, a convention rather than a legal requirement.

What share of the votes cast went to Leave in the 2016 referendum on European Union membership?

51.9% of votes cast were for leaving against 48.1% for remaining, a result that reversed the on-the-day poll which had put Remain ahead.

The Liberal Democrats were created in 1988 when the Liberals merged with which breakaway from Labour?

The Social Democratic Party had fought two elections in alliance with the Liberals before the merger, which briefly produced the name Social and Liberal Democrats.

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 won the chair by 372 votes to 238 and was also the first Speaker ever elected from the opposition benches.

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, sat as a committee of the upper house; the ten in office in October 2009 became the first Supreme Court justices.

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

Brenda Hale, who in 2004 had become the first woman among the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, sat with ten other justices on the enlarged panel that day.

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, and its members, once AMs, became Members of the Senedd; the body has since grown from 60 to 96 seats.

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

Their constitution needed a Nineteenth Amendment before the state could sign the deal; voters north and south said yes on the same day, an all-island verdict.

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

Rachel Reeves took over the Treasury after Labour's 2024 victory, the first woman in a line of Chancellors stretching back more than 800 years.

Norman Lamont was Chancellor when sterling was pulled out of which European system on 16 September 1992?

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 had already been elected the Greens' first leader in 2008, and she held the seat until standing down in 2024.

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 its abolition in 1986, and he held the mayoralty until 2008.

Diane Abbott and Bernie Grant were among the first Black MPs of the modern era, elected in which year?

1987 brought four MPs of colour into the Commons at once, with Paul Boateng and Keith Vaz elected alongside them; Abbott was the first Black woman MP.

How many hereditary members kept their seats when the 1999 House of Lords Act removed the rest?

92 stayed on under the Weatherill Amendment, a compromise struck with Viscount Cranborne that was meant to be temporary and lasted until the remaining hereditary peers were finally removed on 29 April 2026.

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.

In Northern Ireland's power-sharing Executive, what befalls the deputy First Minister when the First Minister quits?

They also lose office automatically, because the two posts are a joint ticket: 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 ranks candidates in order of preference, lost on a 42% turnout, in the first UK-wide referendum since 1975.

The Representation of the People Act 1918 gave the vote to property-qualified women over what age?

30 was the threshold, with a property test attached, while men got the vote at 21; women had to wait until 1928 for equal terms.

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 is the top official post in a Whitehall department, and Nigel Hawthorne played Sir Humphrey as the master of blocking every ministerial plan.

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

Father of the House is the senior member, and Canada's equivalent is called the Dean of the House; the holder is the second MP sworn in after the Speaker.

Who in 2018 became the first woman to serve as Black Rod in the office's 650-year history?

Sarah Clarke arrived from running the Wimbledon championships as their director, and she also became the first female Serjeant-at-Arms of the Lords.

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's 30 days in office remain the shortest tenure of any modern Chancellor, shorter even than Kwasi Kwarteng's 38 days in 2022, and Anthony Barber took over.

Who became the first Cabinet Secretary in 1916, when Lloyd George set up a War Cabinet with its own secretariat?

Maurice Hankey ran the Committee of Imperial Defence's secretariat, which simply became the War Cabinet's, and he later made the rare jump from civil servant to minister.

When a Commons division ties, the Speaker's casting vote follows a convention named after which Victorian Speaker?

John Evelyn Denison set the precedent in 1867 by voting against a motion on Trinity College Dublin fellowships, so that nothing passes without a true majority.

Who in 2006 became the first Lord Speaker, a post created when a Cabinet minister stopped presiding over the Lords?

Helene Hayman was elected by her fellow members of the Lords, and a royal warrant set her rank immediately after the Commons Speaker's.

Which radical publisher began printing Parliamentary Debates in 1802, a title later taken over by Thomas Hansard?

William Cobbett issued the debates as a supplement to his Political Register; in 1810 he stood trial for seditious libel over an article Hansard had printed.

Winnie Ewing's win at which 1967 by-election put the SNP in the Commons and sent its membership soaring?

Hamilton fell to Ewing, and her presence at Westminster led to a rise in SNP membership; the party's first seat had come at Motherwell in 1945.

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

Margaret Bondfield was also the first woman Privy Counsellor and had earlier been the first to chair the TUC's General Council.

Gwynfor Evans won Plaid Cymru's first ever Commons seat at a 1966 by-election in which constituency?

Carmarthen sent Evans to Westminster twice, from 1966 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1979, during his 36 years as the party's president.

Which Cabinet Secretary admitted being 'economical with the truth' during the 1986 Spycatcher trial in Australia?

Robert Armstrong was the key witness in the attempt to block Peter Wright's memoir, and his phrase went straight into the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

The general election of December 2019 was the first held in that month since which year?

1923 was the previous December poll, when Stanley Baldwin's snap election backfired and produced a hung parliament.

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 under an amendment moved by Labour MP George Cunningham, so a simple majority was not enough.

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

Limehouse gave its name to the 25 January 1981 statement by Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams that led to the SDP.

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

Michael Heseltine brandished the Mace as Labour left-wingers sang The Red Flag, until Jim Prior grabbed it off him.

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

Mhairi Black was 20 years, 7 months and 25 days old, beating a record set in 1832 by William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam.