The first newsquiz of 2021

Welcome to this week’s newsquiz, the first of 2021. Let’s hope it’s a year where I am asking more good news than bad news questions. The top solo scorer in last week’s newsquiz was Liz Gerard with 21. The top team score was 22.5 by Maura and Phil Parsons and Simon, Sue and Will Cole. Gavin Devine with Lucy and Flo scored 21.5, the Penmans and Bruce and Sarah Hayward 21, Adam Batstone and Lucy Thorpe 19.5 and the Roberts Family 19. If you haven’t done the Journalists’ Charity newsquiz of the year yet, why not tackle it here. There are 100 questions to test your knowledge of 2020. Below is this week’s newsquiz. Give it a go and let me know you score. Happy New Year.  

A selection of today's front pages

1. MPs passed the European Union (Future Relationship) Bill with 521 voting for and how many against?

2. Where is to remain part of the UK but will also be in the EU's Schengen zone, allowing free movement in Europe, and will follow other EU rules?

3. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that those who thought the UK could not 'have its cake and eat it' over Brexit had been proved wrong, adding 'I want you to see that this is a ___ treaty’. What is the missing word?

4. Who said he was applying for a French passport adding: 'I will always be a European, that's for sure. One cannot tell the British people - you are not Europeans’?

5. Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had been approved for use in the UK with how many doses available from Monday?
6. The British Medical Association said that what was ‘grossly and patently unfair to tens of thousands of our most at-risk patients’?

7. Which county declared a major incident amid fears the number of Covid-19 cases could overwhelm its health services?

8. Why was Jeremy Hunt, chair of the health select committee, given a telling off by the Commons speaker when he virtually joined the Covid-19 debate?

9. The Government delayed the reopening of schools after the Christmas break but said it expected all schools and colleges to have fully reopened by what date in January?

10. Hundreds of British holidaymakers fled their hotels in which ski resort after being told to quarantine following fresh Covid-19 measures?

11. Former Scotland manager Tommy Docherty, who died aged 92, managed 13 football clubs from 1961 to 1988 - winning the League Cup and FA Cup with two different English clubs. Name them?

12. What was unique about these three pubs this week - Fraggle Rock Bar, Turks Head and The Mermaid Inn?

13. According to the Centre for Economic and Business Research, the UK leapfrogged which country to become the world's fifth-largest economy?

14. Tesco, Pizza Hut and Superdrug were among 139 companies named by the Government for failing to do what?

15. A man described by Russian president Vladimir Putin as an 'outstanding professional of special courage and life endurance’ died this week aged 98. What was his name? 

16. Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, killed himself, injured three people and knocked out communications systems when he blew up his camper van in which US City?

17. At least seven people died in a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that struck which European country?

18. He designed collarless jackets for the Beatles, launched lines of perfume, sunglasses, boxer shorts and once said: 'I've done it all. I even have my own water! I'll do perfumes, sardines. Why not? If someone asked me to do toilet paper, I'd do it’? Who was he?

19. Which Premier League football club condemned the online abuse of ex-footballer Karen Carney after it had posted a tweet questioning her comments as a pundit?

20. Gusts of more than 100mph hit the UK after Christmas as a storm called what brought heavy rain and high winds?

21. Which comedian was diagnosed with Covid-19 on Christmas Day, saying it 'flattened' him and his wife Melanie but said he would be 'back on his feet and working in no time’?

22. Who reacted to becoming a dame in the New Year’s Honours by saying: 'I feel I may be lowering the tone. I feel slightly miscast’?

23. Why did yoga instructor and social media influencer Hilaria Baldwin, the wife of Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin, become the subject of online speculation?

24. Who narrated the New Year’s Eve fireworks display in London? 

25. Sophie Ellis-Bextor was the first celebrity to be eliminated from the new series of The Masked Singer. What was she dressed as?

Answers here