Quiz time
Who are the only two British Prime Ministers to have won an election since 1935 (Stanley Baldwin) who were not educated at Oxford?
And while we're at it, who was the only PM to have played for I Zingari?
posted by Paul Jeremy @ Wednesday, October 26, 2005
4 Comments:
A Mr JJ of Oxford replied correctly with the following. I await I Zingari PM answers.
John Major
not James Callaghan (who was PM but never won an election)
but instead Winston Churchill (who only won an election once, in 1951, and
1/2 won in 1950, when he won the popular vote but fewer seats).
Question 4 of The Guardian Saturday quiz on 4 November is
"Which PM played first class cricket?".
Spooky. The first part of Quiz time was straightforwardly ripped off from politicalbetting.com, rearranged into the interrogative. The second part came from a bit of surfing and my attraction to the intrinsically humourous nature of "I Zingari" (in large part thanks to Peter Tinniswood).
In the unlikely event of anyone reading this, the answer is Alec Douglas-Hume.
Alec Douglas Hume, aka Lord Dunglass, aka the Earl of Home, played first class cricket for Middlesex, Free Foresters, HDG Leveson-Gower's XI, Oxford University, MCC and Harlequins.
Other keen cricketing PMs were Major, Atlee, Palmerston, Churchill and Baldwin. Stanley Baldwin liked to sport an I Zingari tie.
I read recently that I Zingari was formed as a team for gents of leisure (not exclusivley OE after all), preferably those still living off their father's income. A progressive move of sorts, as it was deemed a means of encouraging gentleman fast bowlers. At the time professional bowlers were favoured to improve the chances of winning for betting purposes, betting being the purpose of cricket at that time.
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