The authoritative source for independent research on UK-EU relations

21 Dec 2021

Politics and Society

Test your knowledge of all things EU, UK, EU-UK and more in our Christmas pub quiz! Although there’s no pub and no one to check if you’re cheating (of course you wouldn’t), we’ll be posting questions throughout the week on different subjects related to our research and areas of interest and we challenge you to see how many answers you can get right. Today’s round: Desert Island Politicians! Answers will be posted on Thursday 23 December. Good luck!

The answers are all people who have or currently led one of the two main UK political parties in the last 4 decades. 

  1.  Whose favourite to save from the waves was Brahms variation on a theme of St Antoni, luxury was a pot of French mustard and book was an Indian edition of Homer?: Boris Johnson
  2. Whose luxury was a tennis ball machine and racket and among other records chose Loch Lomond by Runrig?: Gordon Brown
  3. Whose book choice was Master of the Senate vol 3 by Robert Caro and final disc selection was That’s Life by Frank Sinatra?: William Hague
  4. Who chose Dancing Queen by Abba, Walk like a Man and an episode from Yes Prime Minister?: Theresa May
  5. Who chose Three Lions and Artists for Grenfell version of Bridge over Troubled Water?: Keir Starmer
  6. Who went for Puccini, Mozart and Charles Aznavour and wanted to take oil paints as their luxury?: Iain Duncan Smith  
  7. Whose practical book choice was a survival manual, luxury a photo album of their children and chose Bob Newhart “introducing Tobacco to civilization” as one of their disc picks?: Margaret Thatcher
  8.  Who wanted Angels by Robbie Williams and Take on Me by a-ha all to accompany a weekly chicken tikka takeaway?: Ed Miliband
  9. Whose top pick was Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up in Blue and wanted to take the River Cottage cookbook as their book? : David Cameron
  10. Whose book choice was the Small House at Allington by Trollope and picked Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue? : John Major
  11. Who picked the Beatles and Springsteen but favourite to be saved from the waves was “recuerdos de la alhambra?” : Tony Blair 
  12. Another vote for Robert Caro and Master of the Senate – but their favourite was Bryan Adams Everything I Do (yes, honestly…) : Michael Howard 
  13. Who chose a song in Gaelic, some Kenneth McKellar singing Robbie Burns and wanted a crate of champagne? John Smith
  14. Who chose their daughter’s tape as their top disc and Radio 4 as their rather sycophantic luxury?: Neil Kinnock  
  15. What was special about Jeremy Corbyn’s appearance on the desert island? : There wasn’t one!

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