Sunday Times Teaser 2892 – Political Pairings
by Graham Smithers
Published February 25 2018 (link)
A debating society arranged for a series of eight political debates between different Labour and Conservative politicians, each time with a different presenter.
The presenters were: MARR, NEIL, NEWMAN, PARKINSON, PAXMAN, POPPLEWELL, ROBINSON and SNOW.
The Labour politicians were: ABBOTT, ABRAHAMS, CHAKRABARTI, CORBYN, EAGLE, LEWIS, STARMER and WATSON.
The Conservative politicians were: BRADLEY, GRAYLING, GREEN, HAMMOND, LEADSOM, LIDINGTON, MCLOUGHLIN and MUNDELL.
For each debate there were 2 letters in common for any pairing from presenter, Labour politician and Conservative politician. The Labour politicians are listed alphabetically. What is the corresponding order for the Conservative politicians?
A solution using my Python solver for this type of puzzle (available here: grouping.py).