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Quiz of the year

It's the quiz of 2015, compiled by the Socialist. The questions are drawn from articles covering events in the UK and internationally during the last year. Good luck and season's greetings.

Quote, unquote

1) Who described corruption allegations against him a "witch-hunt"?

2) Who was judge Lord Burns referring to when he said: "Not every lie amounts to perjury"?

3) Who admitted engaging in "vanilla bland" tax avoidance?

4) Who did the IPCC not prosecute "because of the passage of time"?

5) Who described disgraced Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson a "friend" and "a huge talent"?

6) Whose Great British Bake Off's racist comment caused a media storm?

7) Who called for "a proper revolution" on BBC Question Time?

8) Who dismissed the all-London bus drivers' strike for equal pay as "ridiculous"?

9) Which Tory peer wrote to the Cayman Islands government dismissing the UK government's tax avoidance measures as a "purely political gesture"?

Whereabouts?

1) Which country voted to legalise same-sex marriage?

2) Where did a public sector general strike take place on 13 March?

3) Where did the biggest general strike (possibly ever) take place?

4) Where did teachers' strikes, combined with student and parent protests, stop local schools becoming academies?

5) Where did steelmaking end after 100 years?

6) Where did the death in police custody of black American Freddie Gray spark mass protests and a state of emergency being declared?

Who and whom

1) Whose murder triggered a near collapse of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive?

2) Whose revelations about David Cameron's alleged porcine activities temporarily diverted press headlines from attacking Jeremy Corbyn?

3) Whose reward for saving people from a fire was a £9,000 a year pay cut?

4) Whose "defeat devices" led to a global fraud?

5) Who in the UK got a 10% pay rise?

6) Whose secretive private banking arm assisted the super-rich to dodge taxes and conceal billions of dollars in assets?

7) Who has been charged with false imprisonment of the deputy prime minister?

8) Who won higher pay, permanent jobs and improved working conditions after all-out strike action?

9) Who was removed from office by an Election Court judge?

10) Name the peer who resigned over a sex and drugs scandal.

11) Who lost $4 trillion in June?

12) Name the satirical French magazine whose staff were murdered by Islamist terrorists?

13) Name the company which quit running Hinchingbrooke NHS hospital?

14) In October, who lost the shirts off their backs?

15) Who, having told Greek workers to accept austerity, turned out not to have paid taxes?

16) Who said they wouldn't oppose Chancellor Osborne's welfare cuts?

Playing the percentages

1) What percentage of trade union members must vote to trigger a valid strike ballot according to the government's (anti-) Trade Union Bill?

2) What percentage of the electorate voted Tory in May's general election?

3) What percentage of homes in England was deemed "unaffordable" for an average income family?

4) What percentage vote did Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn receive in his successful election?

5) In a July referendum, what percentage of Greek voters rejected austerity?

6) According to the Office for National Statistics, what increased by 19% last year?

7) Whose 55.5% of the vote secured re-election?

In numbers

1) How many Syrian war refugees will the Tory government resettle in the UK by 2020?

2) How many MPs are private landlords?

3) How many Labour MPs were elected from Scotland in May's general election?

4) According to Oxfam, 80 billionaires globally own as much wealth as how many people?

5) How long did the PCS union organised National Gallery strike last?

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Answers

Quote, unquote

1) Fifa's ex-president, Sepp Blatter

2) Convicted ex-News of the World editor and Cameron spin doctor Andy Coulson during his abandoned perjury trial

3) Former Tory party treasurer, Lord Fink

4) South Yorkshire Police over assaulting striking miners in 1984 at Ogreave, and perverting the course of justice

5) David Cameron. In 2011 Clarkson called for striking public sector workers to be executed

6) Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell. Disgracefully, the Mail later commented that winner Nadiya Hussain, a Muslim, came from Leeds as did three of the 7/7 London suicide bombers

7) Writer and broadcaster Coren Mitchell, regarding the current housing crisis

8) Transport minister Patrick McLoughlin

9) David Maclean, aka Baron Blencathra

Whereabouts?

1) The Irish Republic - 61% said yes

2) Northern Ireland

3) India. An estimated 150 million workers struck against the Modi government's anti-worker policies

4) Lewisham, south London

5) Redcar. SSI company was wound up on 2 October with the loss of 2,200 jobs

6) Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Who and whom

1) Ex-IRA member Kevin McGuigan

2) Former 'non-dom' and Tory deputy chairman, Lord Ashcroft

3) British Airways cabin crew who rescued 170 passengers aboard flight 2276 at Las Vegas airport

4) Volkswagen. The world's largest car manufacturer rigged engine pollution tests

5) MPs, (plus a £50,000 pension top-up) while imposing another year's pay freeze on public sector workers

6) HSBC in Switzerland

7) Irish Anti-Austerity Alliance TD (MP) and Socialist Party member Paul Murphy and other anti-water charges protesters, who peacefully blockaded Joan Burton's car

8) 117 hospital workers in Dundee

9) Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman

10) Take your pick! In July it was the Lord's deputy speaker, Baron John Sewel

11) China's stock markets

12) Charlie Hebdo

13) Circle Health

14) Air France executives when their board meeting was stormed by striking workers protesting job losses

15) Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund

16) Interim leader Harriet Harman (only 48 out of 232 Labour MPs voted against the government)

Playing the percentages

1) A minimum 40% of eligible members must vote yes

2) 24%

3) 80%, according to homelessness charity Shelter

4) 59.5% first preference votes

5) 61.5%. Only for EU austerity measures to be passed by a majority of Syriza MPs

6) People employed on zero-hour contracts

7) Socialist Alternative's Kshama Sawant in Seattle's city council elections

Numbers

1) 20,000 or around six per constituency

2) 126 - one-in-five. That includes 89 Tory, 25 Labour and eight SNP MPs

3) One - Losing 40 of 41 seats previously held

4) 3.5 billion, 50% of the world's population

5) Eight months (3 February to 2 October), and was largely successful

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