The ‘who said it’ quiz of the year! Who claimed to break the rules without knowing – and who enraged social media?

(Clockwise from top left) easyJet, Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret Thatcher, a cup of coffee and Donald Trump. Composite: Guardian Design; Ben Queenborough/PinPep/REX/Shutterstock; Shawn Thew/EPA; Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Croft/PA; Milyanchikov Sergey/Alamy

1. “Nobody warned me that it was against the rules, because I would have remembered that.”

   1. Boris Johnson

   2. Rebekah Vardy

   3. Matt Hancock

   4. Kanye West

2. “In a drama, I’m not the person with a knife, I’m the person getting chased. In a comedy, I’m not the person farting, I’m the person who smelled it.”

   1. Larry David

   2. Jason Bateman

   3. Jenna Coleman

   4. Sally Phillips

3. “When I bought my first property, going abroad, the easyJet, coffee, gym, Netflix lifestyle didn’t exist. I used to walk to work with a sandwich. And on payday I’d go for a pizza, and to a movie, and buy a lipstick. I don’t want to belittle those people who can’t do it. But there are loads of people who can do it and don’t.”

   1. Camilla Windsor

   2. Keir Starmer

   3. Kirstie Allsopp

   4. Matt Smith

4. “We have seen Russian tanks hitting the atomic power station and everybody has to understand that this is terror against everyone.”

   1. Joe Biden

   2. Jens Stoltenberg

   3. Volodymyr Zelenskiy

   4. Emmanuel Macron

5. “Christ is risen, Alleluia. He is risen indeed, Alleluia, Alleluia.”

   1. The Pope

   2. Jacob Rees-Mogg

   3. Carrie Johnson

   4. Mario Conti

6. “We have a real, absolute, not relative poverty issue going to come in the UK, with food banks oversubscribed. I am virtually out of tools to help people now.”

   1. Kwasi Kwarteng

   2. Jeremy Hunt

   3. Sajid Javid

   4. Martin Lewis

7. “I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said that every prime minister needs a Willy. A woman like me doesn’t have one.”

   1. Penny Mordaunt

   2. Liz Truss

   3. Kemi Badenoch

   4. Thérèse Coffey

8. “The working class is back. We refuse to be meek, we refuse to be humble, we refuse to wait for politicians and policy-writers – and we refuse to be poor any more.”

   1. Keir Starmer

   2. Mick Lynch

   3. Jeremy Corbyn

   4. Declan Donnelly

9. “Watching those instruments of power, the crown and the orb and the sceptre being taken back, that had been given to the Queen at the coronation and put on the altar – the reign was over. I was very moved by that.”

   1. David Dimbleby

   2. King Charles

   3. Phillip Schofield

   4. Holly Willoughby

10. “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox populi, vox dei.”

    1. Clarence Thomas

    2. Elon Musk

    3. Ron DeSantis

    4. Mia Love

Solutions

1:A - The prime minister danced around various explanations for the lockdown parties that took place in Downing Street, running the gamut from saying there were no parties, through to saying that he did not attend any parties if there were any, landing at the start of the year on arguably his weakest line: nobody told me about these rules that I made., 2:B - The Ozark and Arrested Development star made an unusually acute evaluation of his entire career-to-date, the timeless man who runs away and smells things., 3:C - Avocados were so 2021: this year, the nonsensical reason young people can’t afford anything is that they spend all their money on their Netflix lifestyles. Kirstie Allsopp took the first-mover advantage, if the advantage you want is to get everyone to hate you on social media., 4:C - Two weeks after Russian hostilities began, the president of Ukraine addressed the Commons, underlining the gravity of Putin’s actions and intentions. A parliament, at that point, incapable of talking seriously about anything briefly halted its antics to acknowledge Zelenskiy’s courage., 5:B - It was Rees-Mogg, the man least likely to pass through the eye of a needle, who briefly took himself to be God’s representative on Twitter, at Eastertide., 6:D - Yes, those were some trick answers, since obviously the chancellor of the exchequer never had the tools to help people in the first place! The answer is Martin Lewis, the money saving expert and 2022’s Marcus Rashford., 7:A - Yes, that was Penny Mordaunt firing up the Margaret Thatcher quote generator for a nonsensical reference to trans issues. As pleasant as it would be to forget the unedifying spectacle of the Tory leadership contest, some details just won’t budge., 8:B - The head of the RMT union ignited support in the most surprising places – for brevity let’s call it “everywhere” – with rolling rail strikes and straight talking., 9:A - The veteran broadcaster came out of retirement to load incredible simple statements with fathomless meaning, the way only he, and all the people related to him, can., 10:B - Relax, everyone, Donald Trump can’t be reinstated into the presidency until people vote for him, which is ages away. This was just a reinstatement to Twitter, decreed by its billionaire owner; the orange spectre declined to take it up (at the time of writing), but that wasn’t even the most embarrassing moment for Musk that day.

Scores

1. 10 and above.

   A perfect score! You really have been paying attention this year. You even paid attention to Kirstie Allsopp. Impressive.

2. 7 and above.

   You’re probably after some patronising but warm and heartfelt remark, such as: “Congratulations! You really have been paying attention this year, particularly with regards to your Guardian reading, and we wish you a merry Christmas.” And you’re in luck! Congratulations etc.

3. 0 and above.

   Performative failure, signalling derision for the quiz form, seasonal variants in particular: I take your point. Bravo.

4. 4 and above.

   Look, it’s one thing not to care if, say, Phil and Holly were accused of jumping the queue for the Queen’s lying in state, or whether a megalomaniac has taken over a well-known social media platform that you never use anyway; it’s actually better for your wellbeing not to care who’s leading the Conservative party. But it’s another thing not to notice.