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50 free British Politics trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
British politics runs on rules nobody wrote down. A new Speaker has to be hauled to the chair. One MP is held at Buckingham Palace while the monarch is in Parliament. A minister may drink at the despatch box on exactly one day a year. Most of it is tradition rather than law, which is why it makes such good trivia. These 50 questions cover the machinery rather than the personalities: how the Commons and the Lords actually work, the officers who keep them running, the State Opening, Downing Street and the Treasury, the civil service, the Supreme Court, devolution to Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, how elections and referendums are run, and the firsts that changed who could sit in Parliament at all. Every question carries a clue you can reason from, and every answer comes with the detail that makes it stick. Use it for a pub round, a politics classroom, or to find out how much of Westminster you have absorbed without ever meaning to.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01At which annual Commons occasion may the minister speaking drink alcohol, otherwise forbidden in the chamber?
The Budget
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.
Q 02In 1938 the Woolsack, the seat of whoever presides over the Lords, was found to be stuffed with what?
Horsehair
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.
Q 03At the State Opening of Parliament, an MP is kept 'hostage' at Buckingham Palace to guarantee whose safe return?
The sovereign
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.
Q 04What official title was given to Larry, the tabby cat who moved into 10 Downing Street in 2011?
Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office
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.
Q 05The parliamentary 'whip' who keeps MPs voting with their party borrows the title from a role in which pursuit?
Hunting with hounds
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.
Q 06Which monarch was the last to refuse Royal Assent to a bill, vetoing the Scottish Militia Bill in 1708?
Queen Anne
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.
Q 07What do MPs ceremonially do to a newly elected Speaker of the Commons, who must show reluctance at being chosen?
Drag them to the chair
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.
Q 08The nickname 'Tory', still used for Conservatives, entered English in the 1600s as a word for what?
Irish outlaws
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.
Q 09What delayed the declaration of the July 1945 general election result until three weeks after polling day?
Votes from troops overseas
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.
Q 10Who in November 2014 became the first woman to serve as First Minister of Scotland, succeeding Alex Salmond?
Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon was elected SNP leader unopposed and became the first woman to hold either post, staying in office until 2023.
Q 11Since 1935, every UK general election has been held on which day of the week?
Thursday
Thursday has been polling day at every general election since 1935, a convention rather than a legal requirement.
Q 12What share of the votes cast went to Leave in the 2016 referendum on European Union membership?
51.9%
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.
Q 13The Liberal Democrats were created in 1988 when the Liberals merged with which breakaway from Labour?
Social Democratic Party
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.
Q 21Who in July 2024 became the first woman to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the office's 800-year history?
Rachel Reeves
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.
Q 22Norman Lamont was Chancellor when sterling was pulled out of which European system on 16 September 1992?
The Exchange Rate Mechanism
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.
Q 23Who won Brighton Pavilion in 2010 to become the Green Party's first ever MP?
Q 14Sinn Féin MPs stand for Westminster but never take their Commons seats, because doing so would require what?
Swearing allegiance to the King
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.
Q 15Who in 1919 became the first woman to sit in the Commons, winning her husband's former seat of Plymouth Sutton?
Nancy Astor
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.
Q 16Which former Tiller Girl dancer and Labour MP was elected the first woman Speaker of the Commons in 1992?
Betty Boothroyd
Betty Boothroyd won the chair by 372 votes to 238 and was also the first Speaker ever elected from the opposition benches.
Q 17Before the Supreme Court opened in 2009, the UK's most senior appeal judges were known collectively as what?
The Law Lords
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.
Q 18Which Supreme Court President announced the unanimous 2019 ruling that the prorogation of Parliament was unlawful?
Brenda Hale
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.
Q 19Before adopting the name Senedd in May 2020, the Welsh legislature had been officially known as what?
National Assembly for Wales
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.
Q 20What did Republic of Ireland voters amend on 22 May 1998, as Northern Ireland endorsed the Good Friday Agreement?
Their constitution
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.
Caroline Lucas
Caroline Lucas had already been elected the Greens' first leader in 2008, and she held the seat until standing down in 2024.
Q 24Who won the first election for Mayor of London in 2000, running as an independent after losing Labour's selection?
Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone had led the Greater London Council until its abolition in 1986, and he held the mayoralty until 2008.
Q 25Diane Abbott and Bernie Grant were among the first Black MPs of the modern era, elected in which year?
1987
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.
Q 26How many hereditary members kept their seats when the 1999 House of Lords Act removed the rest?
92
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.
Q 27Enric Miralles, the architect of the Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood, came from which country?
Spain
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.
Q 28In Northern Ireland's power-sharing Executive, what befalls the deputy First Minister when the First Minister quits?
They also lose office
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.
Q 29The 2011 referendum offering which system in place of first-past-the-post was rejected by 67.9% of voters?
The Alternative Vote
The Alternative Vote, which ranks candidates in order of preference, lost on a 42% turnout, in the first UK-wide referendum since 1975.
Q 30The Representation of the People Act 1918 gave the vote to property-qualified women over what age?
30
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.