British Political History since 1900

Question 1

Who joined the Cabinet at the age of just 31, when he was appointed President of the Board of Trade in 1947?

Answer 1

Harold Wilson

Question 2

What name was given to the historic series of Constitutional proposals about Northern Ireland, signed on 10 April 1998?

Answer 2

Good Friday Agreement

Question 3

Who wrote in her diary, “She is so clearly the best man among them” on Margaret Thatcher’s election as Conservative Party leader?

Answer 3

Barbara Castle

Question 4

Who was Britain’s Prime Minister at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914?

Answer 4

Herbert Asquith

Question 5

Who resigned as Foreign Secretary in 1935, after details of his pact with Pierre Laval were leaked to the press?

Answer 5

Sir Samuel Hoare

Question 6

Whose comment on Macmillan’s drastic reshuffle of July 1962 was “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life”?

Answer 6

Jeremy Thorpe

Question 7

What was the slogan on the famous poster, used by the Conservatives at the 1979 General Election, showing a queue of people at an unemployment office?

Answer 7

Labour Isn’t Working

Question 8

Who is the only Prime Minister to have also held all three great offices of state? Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Answer 8

James Callaghan

Question 9

In the expenses scandal of 2009, what term was adopted by the media for the MP’s practice of switching the designation of main and second homes in order to qualify for maximum allowances?

Answer 9

Flipping

Question 10

Which British Prime Minister wrote the novel Savrola, which was first published in 1900?

Answer 10

Winston Chirchill

Question 11

In November 1974, which former Government minister was supposedly drowned while swimming off Miami, only to turn up several weeks later in Australia?

Answer 11

John Stonehouse

Question 12

What name, taken from a left-wing journal, was used for the group of Labour MPs who were at the heart of Bevanite support in the 1950s?

Answer 12

Tribune

Question 13

Which party took part in a general election for the first time in 1992, fielding 310 candidates all of whom lost their deposits?

Answer 13

Natural Law Party

Question 14

Which Conservative MP lost Enfield Southgate at the 1997 General Election, despite defending a majority of 15,545?

Answer 14

Michael Portillo

Question 15

In October 1960, who told a largely hostile Labour Party conference, “There are some of us who will fight and fight again to save the party we love”?

Answer 15

Hugh Gaitskill

Question 16

The statement issued on 25 January 1981 by so-called “Gang of Four” announced their intention to leave the Labour Party, is known by what name?

Answer 16

Limehouse Declaration

Question 17

Which Liberal Democrat resigned from his position as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in May 2010, just weeks after the Coalition government had taken office?

Answer 17

David Laws

Question 18

Who was the first person to disclaim a title under the 1963 Peerage Act?

Answer 18

Anthony Wedgewood Benn

Question 19

In a parliamentary debate in 1907, what did David Lloyd George describe as “Mr Balfour’s poodle. It fetches and carries for him. It barks for him. It bites anybody that he sets it on to”?

Answer 19

The House of Lords

Question 20

Which future leader of the Conservative Party was first elected to Parliament in 1989, in a by-election at Richmond in Yorkshire?

Answer 20

William Hague

Question 21

Who became Scotland’s First Minister in 1999, following the first elections to the Scottish Parliament?

Answer 21

Donald Dewar

Question 22

In a speech at the Guildhall in November 1914, what did Winston Churchill say was the maxim of the British people?

Answer 22

Business as usual

Question 23

Who was forced to resign as an MP in 1974, while facing bankruptcy after investing in the Canadian company Aquablast?

Answer 23

Jeffrey Archer

Question 24

Who was appointed as Home Secretary in Tony Blair’s first Cabinet, in May 1997?

Answer 24

Jack Straw

Question 25

What was the two-word election slogan used by Stanley Baldwin and the Conservatives during the 1929 General Election campaign?

Answer 25

Safety first

Question 26

Who was Margaret Thatcher’s chief press secretary from shortly after the 1979 General Election until after her resignation in 1990?

Answer 26

Bernard Ingham

Question 27

Whom did Michael Foot beat by ten votes to become leader of the Labour Party in 1980?

Answer 27

Denis Healey

Question 28

Which party’s first MP was JT Walton Newbold, who won Motherwell in 1922?

Answer 28

Communist Party

Question 29

In 1995, who announced that he had brought a libel action in order to fight “bent and twisted jounalism … with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play”?

Answer 29

Jonathan Aitken

Question 30

With which name, taken from a Surrey hotel, did Harold Wilson brand the Conservatives as uncaring in the run-up to the 1970 General Election?

Answer 30

Selsdon Man