British Politics Since the Brexit Referendum
Britain got through five prime ministers between 2016 and 2024, which is precisely why this ground turns up in every school and workplace quiz — there is a great deal of it, and almost all of it is exactly dated. The questions here stick to things already settled into the record: referendum results, election dates, resignations, court rulings.
Q1.On what date was the EU membership referendum held?Tap to reveal
Answer: 23 June 2016
Q2.What percentage of the vote did Leave win?Tap to reveal
Answer: 51.9%
Q3.Which prime minister formally triggered Article 50?Tap to reveal
Answer: Theresa May
Q4.On what date did the UK formally leave the European Union?Tap to reveal
Answer: 31 January 2020
Q5.Who succeeded Boris Johnson as prime minister in September 2022?Tap to reveal
Answer: Liz Truss
Q6.How many days did Liz Truss serve as prime minister?Tap to reveal
Answer: 49
Q7.Who was Chancellor for the September 2022 mini-budget?Tap to reveal
Answer: Kwasi Kwarteng
Q8.Who became the UK's first British Asian prime minister?Tap to reveal
Answer: Rishi Sunak
Q9.On what date was the 2024 general election held?Tap to reveal
Answer: 4 July 2024
Q10.Who became the first woman to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer?Tap to reveal
Answer: Rachel Reeves
Q11.Which constituency did Nigel Farage win in 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Clacton
Q12.Which 2023 agreement revised the Northern Ireland Protocol?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Windsor Framework
Q13.Who became Northern Ireland's first nationalist First Minister in 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Michelle O'Neill
Q14.Who was elected leader of the Conservative Party in November 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Kemi Badenoch
The Monarchy: Accession, Coronation and Aftermath
The handover from Elizabeth II to Charles III is the one piece of recent history you can assume most of a British room watched live, so the easy questions have to be properly easy and the hard ones have to go past the obvious. Contingency codenames, dates of appointment and the mechanics of succession are where a room starts to separate.
Q1.On what date did Queen Elizabeth II die?Tap to reveal
Answer: 8 September 2022
Q2.At which royal residence did she die?Tap to reveal
Answer: Balmoral
Q3.How many years did Elizabeth II reign?Tap to reveal
Answer: 70
Q4.Which prime minister did she appoint two days before her death?Tap to reveal
Answer: Liz Truss
Q5.What was the codename for the plans triggered by her dying in Scotland?Tap to reveal
Answer: Operation Unicorn
Q6.On what date was Charles III crowned?Tap to reveal
Answer: 6 May 2023
Q7.Where did the coronation take place?Tap to reveal
Answer: Westminster Abbey
Q8.Which Archbishop of Canterbury crowned him?Tap to reveal
Answer: Justin Welby
Q9.What title did Prince William receive on his father's accession?Tap to reveal
Answer: Duke of Cornwall
Q10.How old was Prince Philip when he died in 2021?Tap to reveal
Answer: 99
Q11.What was the title of Prince Harry's 2023 memoir?Tap to reveal
Answer: Spare
Q12.Which jubilee did Elizabeth II celebrate in 2022?Tap to reveal
Answer: Platinum
Q13.In which year did banknotes bearing Charles III enter circulation?Tap to reveal
Answer: 2024
Q14.Who resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury in November 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Justin Welby
World Affairs: Leaders, Wars and Turning Points
The British angle on world news is usually a person or a number — a Bank of England governor who ended up running Canada, or an alliance whose membership figure changed twice in a year. Each of these attaches to a completed event with a settled answer, rather than the running state of any conflict.
Q1.On what date did Russia launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine?Tap to reveal
Answer: 24 February 2022
Q2.Which country joined NATO in April 2023?Tap to reveal
Answer: Finland
Q3.Which country joined NATO in March 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Sweden
Q4.How many members did NATO have after that accession?Tap to reveal
Answer: 32
Q5.On what date did Hamas attack southern Israel?Tap to reveal
Answer: 7 October 2023
Q6.Who was inaugurated as the 47th US president?Tap to reveal
Answer: Donald Trump
Q7.Who was the only previous US president to serve non-consecutive terms?Tap to reveal
Answer: Grover Cleveland
Q8.Who was sworn in as US vice-president in January 2025?Tap to reveal
Answer: JD Vance
Q9.In which Pennsylvania town was Donald Trump shot at in July 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Butler
Q10.Who withdrew from the 2024 US presidential race in July 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Joe Biden
Q11.In which month of 2025 did Pope Francis die?Tap to reveal
Answer: April
Q12.What papal name did Robert Prevost take in May 2025?Tap to reveal
Answer: Leo XIV
Q13.Which country's regime under Bashar al-Assad fell in December 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Syria
Q14.Which former Bank of England governor became prime minister of Canada in 2025?Tap to reveal
Answer: Mark Carney
Sport: The Results People Still Argue About
Sport dates faster than any other quiz category, so this round takes finals and firsts rather than tables and form. Every answer is a completed tournament with a name already engraved on the trophy, which means the round survives the season it was written in.
Q1.Which country beat England on penalties in the Euro 2020 final at Wembley?Tap to reveal
Answer: Italy
Q2.Who scored England's winning goal in the Euro 2022 women's final?Tap to reveal
Answer: Chloe Kelly
Q3.Which club won the 2024-25 Premier League, a record-equalling 20th title?Tap to reveal
Answer: Liverpool
Q4.Which country beat England 2-1 in the Euro 2024 men's final in Berlin?Tap to reveal
Answer: Spain
Q5.Who resigned as England men's manager after Euro 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Gareth Southgate
Q6.Who was appointed as his successor?Tap to reveal
Answer: Thomas Tuchel
Q7.In which Swiss city was the Women's Euro 2025 final played?Tap to reveal
Answer: Basel
Q8.Which country won the 2022 men's football World Cup?Tap to reveal
Answer: Argentina
Q9.How many gold medals did Team GB win at the Paris 2024 Olympics?Tap to reveal
Answer: 14
Q10.Which Briton won the women's 800m gold in Paris?Tap to reveal
Answer: Keely Hodgkinson
Q11.Which Grand Slam did Emma Raducanu win as a qualifier in 2021?Tap to reveal
Answer: The US Open
Q12.Which country won back-to-back Rugby World Cups in 2019 and 2023?Tap to reveal
Answer: South Africa
Q13.Who became the youngest PDC world darts champion in January 2025?Tap to reveal
Answer: Luke Littler
Q14.Who became the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the four-belt era?Tap to reveal
Answer: Oleksandr Usyk
Science, Health and the Climate
Science questions hold their value when they attach to a named person, a measured number or a specific place — the first patient, the record temperature, the last coal-fired station. Nothing here depends on a result that is still being argued over in the literature.
Q1.On what date was the first UK national lockdown announced?Tap to reveal
Answer: 23 March 2020
Q2.In which city did she receive it?Tap to reveal
Answer: Coventry
Q3.Which university developed a Covid vaccine with AstraZeneca?Tap to reveal
Answer: Oxford
Q4.Which space telescope launched on Christmas Day 2021?Tap to reveal
Answer: The James Webb Space Telescope
Q5.Which country landed Chandrayaan-3 near the Moon's south pole in 2023?Tap to reveal
Answer: India
Q6.Which NASA mission deliberately crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in 2022?Tap to reveal
Answer: DART
Q7.Which DeepMind chief executive shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry?Tap to reveal
Answer: Demis Hassabis
Q8.Which company launched ChatGPT in November 2022?Tap to reveal
Answer: OpenAI
Q9.What was the UK's record high temperature, set in July 2022?Tap to reveal
Answer: 40.3°C
Q10.At which Lincolnshire location was it recorded?Tap to reveal
Answer: Coningsby
Q11.Which power station's closure in 2024 ended coal-fired electricity in Britain?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ratcliffe-on-Soar
Q12.What was the UK's peak CPI inflation rate, reached in October 2022?Tap to reveal
Answer: 11.1%
Q13.Which London railway line opened in May 2022?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Elizabeth line
Culture, Awards and Notable Deaths
Award seasons hand a quiz setter a fixed calendar and a published list, which is as close to a guarantee of accuracy as this category gets. The deaths included are the ones that led British bulletins, and the answers are names rather than circumstances.
Q1.Which film won Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards?Tap to reveal
Answer: Oppenheimer
Q2.Which director won his first Best Director Oscar for it?Tap to reveal
Answer: Christopher Nolan
Q3.Which film won Best Picture at the 2025 Academy Awards?Tap to reveal
Answer: Anora
Q4.Which UK city hosted Eurovision in 2023 on Ukraine's behalf?Tap to reveal
Answer: Liverpool
Q5.In which year did the UK last win the Eurovision Song Contest?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1997
Q6.Which Swiss singer won Eurovision 2024?Tap to reveal
Answer: Nemo
Q7.Which novel set aboard the International Space Station won the 2024 Booker Prize?Tap to reveal
Answer: Orbital
Q8.Who wrote it?Tap to reveal
Answer: Samantha Harvey
Q9.Which South Korean writer won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature?Tap to reveal
Answer: Han Kang
Q10.Who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize?Tap to reveal
Answer: María Corina Machado
Q11.Which band reunited for the Live '25 tour, opening in Cardiff?Tap to reveal
Answer: Oasis
Q12.Which Black Sabbath frontman died in July 2025?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ozzy Osbourne
Q13.Which former US president died in December 2024 aged 100?Tap to reveal
Answer: Jimmy Carter
Q14.Which Paris cathedral reopened in December 2024 after its fire?Tap to reveal
Answer: Notre-Dame
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you stop a current affairs quiz going out of date?
Write from finished events rather than running ones. A question about who won a final, when an act took effect, or where a record was set has a permanent answer; a question about who leads a party, what a rate stands at or how negotiations are going has a shelf life of weeks. Every question on this page is phrased against a dated event for that reason.
What period does this quiz cover?
Roughly the last decade, from the 2016 EU referendum onwards, with the weight on 2020-2025. That range is long enough to be substantial and settled, and recent enough that most adults lived through all of it.
How many questions should a current affairs round have?
Ten is the standard for a pub quiz round and fits a 15-minute form-time slot comfortably. For a full quiz night, run three or four themed rounds of ten from different sections here rather than one long block, which keeps the difficulty from bunching.
Are these suitable for a school assembly or tutor time?
The politics, monarchy and sport sections work well from around Year 7 upwards. The world affairs section touches on the invasion of Ukraine and the 7 October attacks, so check it against your setting first — the questions are factual and dated, but the subject matter needs a teacher's judgement.
How should I balance the difficulty for a mixed group?
Roughly a third of the questions here are ones most people will get, a third need genuine attention to the news, and a third are hard. Deal them alternately rather than in a rising ramp, so no team spends five questions in a row writing nothing.
