Following the recall of both Houses on Wednesday for tributes to Baroness Thatcher, I thought it appropriate that the quiz should focus on the era of the Thatcher Government. The number of peers speaking in Wednesday’s sitting reflected the experience many had during the period of the Thatcher premiership. This explains both the length of the sitting – almost twice the length expected – and the number of MPs who came to the bar of the House to listen, including the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. As usual, the first two readers to supply the correct answers will be the winners.
1. I am a writer, a former Chief of Staff for the Conservative Party, and was the first person to tell Margaret Thatcher that she had won the 1979 general election. Who am I?
2. I am the only Cabinet Secretary from the Thatcher premiership who served one Prime Minister. Who am I?
3. I am a Labour peer and minister at the Methodist chapel in London that Margaret Thatcher supported. Who am I?
4. I am a historian, I sit on the cross benches, and I was Chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies throughout the period of the Thatcher premiership. Who am I?
5. I spent twenty years in the Diplomatic Service before serving as Private Secretary to Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Who am I?
I think number 4 is Lord Young.
1) Michael Dobbs
2) Robert Armstrong
3) Leslie Griffiths
4) Hugh Thomas
5) Charles Powell
Always good to start the weekend with some nerdings.
1. Michael Dobbs
2. Robert Armstrong
3. Lord Griffiths (of Burry Port)
4. M Saatchi?
5. Charles Powell
Becky: On question 4, the clue is the reference to sitting on the cross-benches. Lord Saatchi is a Conservative peer.
1 – Lord Dobbs
2 – Baron Armstrong of Ilminste
3 – Baron Griffiths of Burry Port (of Wesley’s Chapel)
4 – Baron Thomas of Swynnerton
5 – Baron Turnbull
1. Lord (Michael) Dobbs
2. Sir Robert Armstrong, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
3. Lord Griffiths of Burry Port
4. Lord Thomas of Swynnerton
5. Lord (Charles) Powell of Bayswater
1. The Lord Dobbs
2. The Lord Armstrong of Ilminster
3. The Lord Griffiths of Burry Port
4. The Lord Thomas of Swynnerton
5. The Lord Turnbull
I would have been sure that my acquaintance Bernard Ingham would have been on this list but no such….. luck!
Griffiths of Burry Port I should/ have got/get to know since the very chapel was used by my g/gps in the 1890s. I confused his with the son of the late Jim Griffiths MP, the miner’s member, in the 1960s, whose son was a union convenor at Heathrow for some time.
Thanks for the entries. This quiz was quite challenging, reflected in the fact that, although most respondents got most of the answers correct, only two answered all of them correctly. Congratulations, therefore, to Jon Boulton and JH. The answers were indeed Lord Dobbs, Lord armstrong of Ilminster, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, and Lord Powell of Bayswater. Though Lord Turnbull was Private Secretary to Margaret Thatcher as PM, he had not spent twenty years in the diplomatic service.
Apparently the Lords and Ladies of the Blog have fallen stony-silent since this “Thatcher Era” quiz-post of 11 days ago
so the Thatcher-Throng appears to have stopped the Lords of the Blog dead in their tracks as far as “reaching out to the responsibly-participative democratic-public” is concerned.
Is this due to happy-old-upper-class profits-blowing holidays ?
Or is it that the democratic-nation of peoples ceases to be needed, in that sense ceases to ‘exist’, whenever the Peers-of-the-Realm have nothing of interest to discuss or share with us “The People” ?
I doubt “An Emergency” is the cause;
but am told it is quite possible that an insidious coup d’etat is worming its way through Westminster and possibly through the entire Western world
in which case perhaps all our reach-out Peers have already been ‘gagged’ ?
and the Media too ?