What do you have to do to get sacked from government? – quiz

Theresa May, possibly pondering what you have to do before she can sack you. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

With all eyes on an Air Kenya flight heading from Nairobi to Heathrow, carrying Priti Patel to her expected sacking, why not test your knowledge of exactly what you have to do to be kicked out of the cabinet or shadow cabinet in modern politics?

Place yourselves in the shoes of these controversial ministers and try to decide whether you would get the old heave-ho, have to gracefully fall on your sword, or carry on regardless.

Sacked, resign or continue

1. You take an old friend to an official meeting, even though they don't have the requisite security clearance

   1. Sacked

   2. Resign

   3. Continue

2. Your leader finds out that as Shadow Foreign Secretary you have been secretly organising a coup to oust them

   1. Sacked

   2. Resign

   3. Continue

3. You suggest somewhere in Libya could become a great tourist attraction, after "the dead bodies" are cleared up

   1. Sacked

   2. Resign

   3. Continue

4. You believe that UK government policy on conflict in the Gaza strip is “morally indefensible”

   1. Sacked

   2. Resign

   3. Continue

5. 

   You are unhappy about plans to cut disability benefit

   1. Sacked

   2. Resign

   3. Continue

6. You decide you want to run for leader for the Scottish version of your party

   1. Sacked

   2. Resign

   3. Continue

7. 

   An entire stadium of people boo you

   1. Sacked

   2. Resign

   3. Continue

8. 

   You are caught on camera attempting to recite a Kipling poem that features the lines “Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud/ Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd” while standing inside a sacred Buddhist site

   1. Sacked

   2. Resign

   3. Continue

9. 

   You send a tweet with a picture of a house with a white van and a flag on it and the text "Image from #Rochester"

   1. Sacked

   2. Resign

   3. Continue

10. 

    You discover that while you have been health secretary, half a million pieces of medical correspondence, including test results and diagnoses for life-threatening conditions like cancer, sat undelivered in a warehouse

    1. Sacked

    2. Resign

    3. Continue

11. You may, or may not, have called a police officer a "pleb", or something to that effect

    1. Sacked

    2. Resign

    3. Continue

12. 

    You lose a huge national referendum that you called

    1. Sacked

    2. Resign

    3. Continue

Solutions

1:B - Forever known on social media by his full title, "The Disgraced Former Secretary of State for Defence", Liam Fox resigned in October 2011 after concerns were raised about his links to Adam Werritty, 2:A - Hilary Benn was sacked from Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet in June 2016, triggering a wave of resignations. Arguably, other members of the PLP have all been sacked, resigned, or allowed to continue at various points during the last two years while working to replace Corbyn, 3:C - A month ago foreign secretary Boris Johnson was rebuked by 10 Downing Street for saying at Conservative conference: "There’s a group of UK business people...they literally have a brilliant vision to turn Sirte, with the help of the municipality of Sirte, to turn it into the next Dubai. The only thing they’ve got to do is clear the dead bodies away and then they’ll be there.", 4:B - Sayeeda Warsi resigned as senior Foreign Office minister in protest at David Cameron's government's policy on Gaza, 5:B - Architect of Universal Credit, Iain Duncan Smith unexpectedly resigned in March 2016 as work and pensions secretary over cuts to disability benefits. , 6:B - In November 2014 Jim Murphy resigned from Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet to campaign to be the Scottish Labour Party, 7:C - George Osborne shrugged off being the most unpopular man at the London Olympics and Paralympics apart from Fifa's Sepp Blatter, and went on to be chancellor for four more years., 8:C - While visiting Myanmar, a British diplomat intervened to halt foreign secretary Boris Johnson's impromptu recital of The Road to Mandalay. , 9:B - Emily Thornberry resigned from Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet in November 2014 after reaction to her tweet, 10:C - Junior Doctors going on strike. Multiple petitions calling for him to go. Causing controversy by telling parents to Google medical symptons. Repeatedly being called a four-letter word on radio and TV by presenters "by accident". Presiding over the biggest cyberattack in NHS history. Discovering all those lost records. Nevertheless, Jeremy Hunt persisted., 11:B - Andrew Mitchell resigned as Government Chief Whip after a month of debate over whether he called a policeman a pleb. It ended up in court, where a judge ruled that he almost certainly did, 12:B - David Cameron resigned as prime minister after losing the European Union referendum, and then resigned as an MP as well, going on to live happily ever after while other people had to try and sort out what happened next.

Scores

1. 4 and above.

   Junior minister material - you may find yourself unexpectedly back on the back benches

2. 8 and above.

   Spin doctor material - you definitely know whether people can cling on to their jobs

3. 0 and above.

   Amateur - it's possible your moral compass is too highly developed for modern politics

4. 11 and above.

   Prime minister material - you definitely know when it is time for people to go