Election Night Excitement and Quiz
Gerry Hassan
May 6th 2010
I am preparing for election night, and will be doing a live commentary in my local restaurant, Cookies, on Nithsdale Road, Glasgow, before going in to do a morning session for BBC Radio Scotland.
It looks like it could be an exciting and slightly anxious night. A close run election in seats. The prospect of the first election of a Tory Government ejecting Labour from office since 1979. The Tories have a mountain to climb – and if we go from a Labour overall majority to a Tory overall majority – it will only be the third time it has ever happened in history: 1951 and 1970 being the other two. In 1979 Labour had already lost its overall majority.
I am also doing an election and politics quiz. It is not meant to be obtuse and too difficult, and will be easy for any of you trainspotters out there. It is meant to be a bit fun and testing a bit of historical knowledge in a mere twelve questions.
COOKIES ELECTION NIGHT QUIZ
1. How many parliamentary seats has Glasgow got at Westminster? As a supplementary how many national elected representatives does it have?
2. The SNP have had six Westminster parliamentary by-election gains in its history. They are Govan (twice), Hamilton, Perth and Kinross, Glasgow East, and …. Which other seat and when?
3. The last Scottish Prime Minister before Gordon Brown? And Tony Blair doesn’t count (it means sitting for a Scottish seat).
4. What happened eight days after Roy Jenkins won the Glasgow Hillhead by-election on March 25th 1982?
5. Winston Churchill was MP for where in Scotland?
6. The Duchess of Atholl, the ‘Red Duchess’ translated Mein Kampf into English and supported the Spanish Republic in the civil war. Which party was she MP for?
7. Name Margaret Thatcher and John Major’s Secretaries of State for Scotland. You get a point for each. And who was the last fully fledged Scottish Secretary of State?
8. Where was Gordon Brown born? Where did he first live?
9. Who would become Prime Minister if Labour remained in office and Gordon Brown stood down?
10. When did the Tories last win a majority of the vote in Scotland? And when did Labour?
11. Labour’s George Robertson famously defeated the SNP in a by-election in Hamilton in 1978. What was unique about this contest as a post-war by-election?
12. Who is leader of the Labour Group on Glasgow City Council? And leader of the SNP group?
