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Not a Topical Quiz

Now that a General Election has been called, I thought you may like a little diversion: in the following quiz, the answers are the names of politicians who have been active, in one way or another, during the last parliament. I can’t, of course, predict that all will continue to be so in the next parliament. Indeed, the answers include some who will not be standing and thus will not be available, as well as some who will not be standing and thus will be available.

When Merry first saw this quiz, she objected that more politics would be the last thing people would want over the next few weeks. ‘But,’ I explained, ‘though the answers are politicians, the questions are not political.’ Merry was not convinced, so I produced my notes, showing that originally I arranged the questions into 4 categories: Arts and Entertainment (7), Folk Songs and Verse (5), Words (5) and General Knowledge (8). ‘There,’ I said, ‘no politics in sight. The only snag is that I’ve forgotten which questions are which.’

‘You must have had some way of knowing what order to put them in,’ suggested Merry. She was right, and I’m sure you’ll quickly realise how it was done.

However long the full answer to each question, all we want is the surname of the politician, which is the number of letters shown; in a couple of cases, you may need to make a word singular to give the right answer. Scoring: two points for each correct one word answer, one point for a near miss. First to 50 wins, or highest score by the time the polls close, 10 pm (BST) on Thursday 7 June 2001.

1. Often heard on the subject of the rural community (6)
2. Wrote of unrealised expectations after a long wait (7)
3. Visual record of plan to seize power (5)
4. Much loved way of delivering essential food products (5)
5. Scribe misspelled in two ways (6)
6. Only one answer required here – more would be too many (4)
7. Family receives flying visit from eternal youth (7)
8. Cunning beast fell prey to Peel’s Party (3)
9. Entertains appeals to international opinion (5)
10. Favoured lord of singular personal assets (8)
11. Hardy background outlasted many favourite characters (5)
12. Launched many a career before changing names (7)
13. Noisy relative of one of nature’s scavengers (3)
14. Larger-than-life primate wielded great power (4)
15. Travelled with battered gent’s violin (11)
16. Named twice-over in exposure of catch in let-out clause (5)
17. Opposition often failed to deal with Geordie attacker (7)
18. Home team’s reverse in ’66 (6)
19. Revealed result of crop test (8)
20. May rise to great heights (7)
21. Common calling in Commons, or elsewhere (5)
22. Composition of House unable to withstand external test (5)
23. Provided upper layer of old structure (8)
24. End of borrowed transport policy (10)
25. Not a man who ate beef (3)

Created 7 May 2001