The Rundown Podcast: The Big Christmas Quiz 2025!
5 min read
This year’s special Christmas edition of The Rundown podcast comes in the form of a festive quiz, and you can play along, too.
Below are the questions that our teams of PoliticsHome reporters and special guest Westminster journalists tried (and quite often failed) to answer. Scroll down to the bottom for the correct results and see how you fared. Anything in double figures is good. 16 or above would have seen you take the victory in our episode, which you can listen to here.
Enjoy, and look out for our preview of 2026 on The Rundown, out next week:
1: There have been a number of ministerial departures from the Keir Starmer government so far. Can you name three MPs who have left government this year?
2: Starmer was told off by a teacher during a visit to a primary school for doing what?
3: Which British politician charges the most for a personalised video message on Cameo? Nigel Farage or John Bercow? Bonus point for getting within £5 of the exact amount (prices correct as of Dec 22)
4: Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, made a cameo appearance in an episode of which soap?
5: The UK government sent alerts to all mobile phones on British networks on 7 September. But at what time of day?
6: On his visit in August, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was pictured sipping tea with Starmer from the mugs of which famous ceramicist: Wedgwood, Royal Doulton, or Emma Bridgewater?
7: The Hamble Valley Reform UK branch got in trouble on social media after posting a picture of, quote, ‘real people’ on their website, but why?
8: The rail minister Lord Peter Hendy referred himself to the police after admitting to what offence this year? And a bonus point for getting what vehicle he was in at the time.
9: Former minister Andrew Gwynne was sacked after a leak from a WhatsApp group he was part of, in which he joked about the death of an elderly voter and a cycling campaigner, who he hoped would be “mown down” by a lorry, and called a fellow councillor a “fat middle-aged useless thicket”. What was the group called?
10: The must-have item at Labour’s Party conference this year was a red cap or bucket hat being handed out by the housing secretary Steve Reed’s team. What was the slogan on the hats?
11: At Tory conference, all eyes were on shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick to see if he would try and steal the limelight away from Kemi Badenoch. However, his big speech fell flat after an extended metaphor about ‘four blondes’, before he pulled out what from a wooden box and held up to use as a prop?
12: At Reform’s conference, the former minister and opera singer Andrea Jenkyns, now the mayor of Lincolnshire, who, dressed in a sequin jumpsuit, opened the event with a rendition of which of her songs?
13: David Lammy deputised for Starmer at PMQs in November, but his performance was overshadowed by a row over his remembrance poppy, or lack of one. But what was his excuse for forgetting one at the start of the session? And for a bonus point, whose poppy did he borrow?
14: This year saw the formation, and implosion, of Your Party, but it did confirm its permanent name at the founding conference in November. Of these four discarded alternatives, which one was not on the ballot for members to choose from: Popular Alliance, The Left Party, For The Many or Our Party?
15: In October, at the Caerphilly by-election, Plaid Cymru caused an upset by beating Reform to the vacant Senedd seat, but Labour, who had held it since 1999, finished a distant third with what percentage of the vote?
Scroll past the picture to reveal the answers below:
(Alamy)
Answers:
1: Tulip Siddiq, Andrew Gwynne, Anneliese Dodds, Margaret Curran, Vicky Foxcroft, Rushanara Ali, Angela Rayner, Louise Haigh, Justin Madders, Gareth Thomas
2: Performing the ‘6-7’ meme, which is banned at the school
3: John Bercow, who currently charges £81.96, while Nigel Farage charges £70.79
4: Emmerdale
5: 3pm
6: Emma Bridgewater
7: It was an AI-generated image of people
8: Driving while using his mobile phone, and the vehicle was a vintage Routemaster double-decker bus that he was driving through London at rush hour for a charity event
9: Trigger Me Timbers
10: Build, baby, build
11: A judge’s wig
12: Insomniac
13: He went shopping for a new suit that morning, and he later borrowed one from Labour MP Calvin Bailey, himself a decorated RAF veteran.
14: The Left Party
15: 11 per cent
Let us know what score you got by tagging us on Bluesky or X, or by emailing us at [email protected]
The Rundown is presented by Alain Tolhurst, and is produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot
- Click here to listen to the latest episode of The Rundown, or search for 'PoliticsHome' wherever you get your podcasts.
