[Chris O'Carroll]

No 4250
Set by John O’Byrne
David Cameron, on the “Late Show with David Letterman”, failed a mock citizenship test. The PM did not know the English for “Magna Carta” or recall who was the composer of “Rule Britannia”. We asked for some more citizenship test questions along with awkward guesses/answers from other political figures. You could send in one long answer to one question or short answers to a maximum of ten questions.

This week’s winners
First, an hon mensh to Bill Greenwell for Boris Johnson (Q. Where were the Beatles born? A. Some frightful place in the Midlands, um, Mull-on Kintyre?”). £20 to the winners, with the Tesco vouchers going, in addition, to Josh Ekroy.

Nick Griffin
Who was the British prime minister during the Second World War?
A. No, I’m sorry, you’re not going to catch me out with that kind of question. I thought I made it very clear that I wasn’t here to talk about individual personalities, so it’s no use you trying to introduce bias by reducing everything to that. Citizenship is about being British. True British.
Very well. Try this one. What is it that in Britain “broadens down from precedent to precedent”?
A. You know I have to laugh at these trick questions. It just shows how you’re afraid of the truth. We’re a monarchy, get it? We’ve never had a president and we never will.
Can you be LBW from a leg break?
A. You know, it’s typical of your Marxist bias that you raise that old, untrue accusation of violence by the BNP. Goodbye.
Basil Ransome-Davies

Dennis Skinner
Does the UK have a written constitution?
A: Oh, aye. We’ve loads of Tory toffs and jumped up lawyers, all la-di-dah Latin tags and old school ties who’ll quote you Magna Corpus and Habeas Claudius until the cows come home, though they’re not worth wrapping your chips in, any of ’em. Parliamentary sovereignty under the Queen, we’re supposed to have, a woman the back of whose head I’d not give a second lick if me stamps weren’t expensed by the taxpayer. But you’re no more sovereign “under” a figurehead than I was free under the foreman down the pit. No, it’s unwritten rules govern this country as always; funny handshakes, Buggins’ turns, nods, winks and blind horsetrading. They’ll tell you case law is a written constitutional work in progress, but you’ll see more work in a Bolsover Jobcentre and faster progress in the Lords.
Adrian Fry

Philip Hammond
What is the correct way to fly the Union Jack and why is this important?
A. Well, it’s rather a giveaway upside down. It shows ignorance of the right way to hang it, or maybe a deliberate sign that you dislike this symbol of our United Kingdom. You could be signalling to others who only pretend loyalty to this country. If they all maybe flew little upside-down flags on cars – or bikes, they could form an alien group inside Britain. Ah, yes, the correct way. Well, it consists of three crosses, one red no two red – and one blue. The background is white and parts of that background are different widths. No, hang on! The background must be blue for the Scottish part, and the white is their cross, but it’s not evenly spaced round the red crosses. So it depends which bit of white is nearest the flagpole whether it’s flown correctly or not.
Alanna Blake

George Osborne
Who was Lord Beveridge?
A. Wait, I know this one. He started life as plain Mr Fred Beveridge’s Grocers, a small business producing homemade soups with a single shop in Bolton or somewhere north of Watford anyway, a bit like Mr Sainsbury. And as the business expanded he went into the tinned soup trade. Then drinks. It is from him that we get the word beveridge. Which became corrupted to beverage, as in champagne, claret, muesli, you name it. When the business really took off in a big way he got a bit above himself, advising the Attlee government on cradles, graves, etc and coined the phrase: “We are all in this hell for leather.” Unfortunately Attlee listened to him and screwed up the NHS and why Churchill got back into power, in spite of Beveridge’s soup kitchens which caused dysentery in the idle poor.
Josh Ekroy

Margaret Thatcher
Who said: I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart and stomach of a king?
A. Now, this is clearly a patriotic statement of pride in our great British National Health Service and the consummate skill of our wonderful surgeons who perform miraculous transplant surgery that has made Britain the envy of the world.
Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead

Wins this week for Basil Ransome-Davies, Adrian Fry, and Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead. And an hon mensh for Bill Greenwell.