4 January – A memorial service is held for the 270 people who died in the Lockerbie air disaster two weeks ago. Margaret Thatcher and several other world political leaders are among more than 200 people present in the church service at the village of Old Dryfesdale near Lockerbie.
Accident investigators say that the Kegworth air disaster was caused when pilot Kevin Hunt, who survived the crash, accidentally shut down the wrong engine.
Den Watts, the hugely popular character played by Leslie Grantham in the BBC's soap opera EastEnders, departs from the series (which he joined at its inception four years ago) as the character is apparently killed in an episode watched by over 20 million viewers.[7]
16 March – Unemployment is now below 7% for the first time in eight years, but still remains marginally over 2 million.
17 March – The three men convicted of murdering paperboy Carl Bridgewater in Staffordshire 10 years ago have their appeals rejected. A fourth man convicted in connection with the killing died in prison in 1981.
20 March – Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan of the Royal Ulster Constabulary are killed by the IRA.[9]
5 April – 500 workers on the Channel Tunnel go on strike in a protest against pay and working conditions.
6 April – The government announces an end to the legislation which effectively guarantees secure work for more than 9,000 dockers over the remainder of their working lives.[10]
14 April – Ford launches the third generation of its Fiesta, the first to offer a 5-door version which is being built at the Dagenham plant in England and the Valencia plant in Spain.
15 April – 94 people are killed this day in the Hillsborough disaster during the FA Cup semi-final at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield during the FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest FC and Liverpool F.C.; three more will die later of serious injuries received and around 300 others are hospitalized. The death toll is the worst of any sporting disaster in Britain.[1][11] The youngest victim is a 10-year-old boy,[12] the oldest is 67-year-old Gerard Baron, brother of the late former Liverpool player Kevin Baron.[13] Not until 1996 does a second coroner's inquest determine these to be unlawful killings.
16 April – Denis Howell, a former Labour sports minister, urges that the FA Cup final should go ahead this season despite consideration by the Football Association for it to be cancelled due to the Hillsborough disaster.[14]
The Hillsborough disaster claims its 95th victim when 14-year-old Lee Nicol dies in hospital as a result of his injuries. He had been visited in hospital by Diana, Princess of Wales, hours before he died.[16]
Tottenham Hotspur remove perimeter fencing from their White Hart Lane stadium as the first step towards avoiding a repeat of the Hillsborough disaster in English football.[17]
19 April
The Sun newspaper sparks outrage on Merseyside about the Hillsborough Disaster with an article entitled "The Truth", supported by South Yorkshire police and locally based news agencies, which claims that spectators robbed and injured dead spectators, and attacked police officers when they were helping the injured and dying. Other newspapers including the Daily Star and Daily Mirror, as well as several regional newspapers, have also printed similar allegations.
The London Underground is at virtual standstill for a day as most of the workers go on strike in protest against plans for driver-only operated trains.
Fourteen Liverpool fans are convicted of manslaughter and receive prison sentences of up to three years in Brussels, Belgium, in connection with the Heysel disaster at the 1985 European Cup Final in which 39 spectators (most of them Italian) died. A further eleven Liverpool fans are cleared.
May
1–3 May – 54 prisoners stage a three-day protest on the roof of Risley Detention Centre before giving themselves up.[22]
4 May – Margaret Thatcher completes ten years as Prime Minister – the first British Prime Minister of the 20th century to do so.
18 May – Unemployment is now below 2,000,000 for the first time since 1980. The Conservative government's joy at tackling unemployment is, however, marred by the findings of a MORI poll which shows Labour slightly ahead of them for the first time in almost three years.[5]
19 May – Walshaw Dean Lodge, West Yorkshire, enters the UK Weather Records with the Highest 120-min total rainfall at 193 mm. As of July 2006 this record still stands.[24]
20 May – Liverpool win the FA Cupfinal with a 3–2 victory over their Merseyside rivalsEverton. It is the second all-Merseyside cup final in four seasons, and as happened in 1986, Ian Rush is on the scoresheet for Liverpool twice. It is their fourth title in the competition.[25]
A police raid on a suspected drugs operation at a public house in the Heath Town district of Wolverhampton, leads to a riot in which up to 500 people throw missiles and petrol bombs at police officers.[27]
19 June – Labour wins 45 of Britain's 78 European Parliament constituencies in the European elections, with the Conservatives gaining 32 seats. The Green Party of England and Wales gains 2,300,000 votes (15% of the vote) but fails to gain a single seat. This is the first national election won by the Labour Party since its last general election win 15 years ago.
1 July – Fears of a property market downturn are heightened when it is reported that many homeowners looking to move are cutting the asking price of their homes by up to 20% in an attempt to speed up the sale of their property, following the property boom of the last 3 years where the price of many homes doubled at the very least.
10 July – House prices in the south of England have fallen for the second successive quarter, but are continuing to rise in Scotland as well as the north of England.
11 July
Britain's dock workers go on strike in protest against the abolition of the Dock Labour Scheme.
20 July – Labour's lead in the opinion polls has increased substantially, with the latest MORI poll putting them nine points ahead of the Conservatives on 45%.[6]
4 August – David Duckenfield, the chief superintendent who took control of the FA Cup semi-final game where the Hillsborough disaster occurred on 15 April this year, is suspended from duty on full pay after an inquiry by Lord Justice Taylor blames him for the tragedy in which 95 people died. Two victims of the tragedy, Andrew Devine (aged 22) and Tony Bland (aged 19) are still unconscious in hospital.
5 August – A train derails near West Ealing station in London, but the passengers escape without serious injuries.[33]
14 August – The West Midlands Police Serious Crime Squad is disbanded when 50 CID detectives are transferred or suspended after repeated allegations that the force has fabricated confessions.
17 August – Introduction of electronic tagging to monitor and supervise crime suspects.[1]
2 September – Economy experts warn that a recession could soon be about to hit the United Kingdom. This would be the second recession in a decade.
7 September – Heidi Hazell, the 26-year-old wife of a British soldier, is shot dead in Dortmund, West Germany.
8 September – The IRA admits responsibility for the murder of Heidi Hazell. The act is condemned as "evil and cowardly" by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and as "the work of a psychopath" by Opposition Leader Neil Kinnock.
12 September – 19,000 ambulance crew members across Britain go on strike.
15 September – SLDP leader Paddy Ashdown addresses his party's annual conference in Brighton with a vow to "end Thatcherism" and achieve a long-term aim of getting the SLDP into power.
22 September – Eleven Royal Marines bandsmen are killed in the Deal barracks bombing carried out by the IRA.
27 September – David Owen, leader of the Social Democratic Party "rump" which rejected a merger with the Social and Liberal Democrats, admits that his party is no longer a national force.
29 September – House prices in London have fallen by 3.8% since May, and are now 16% lower than they were at the height of the property boom last year.[38]
October
2 October – Three clergy from the British Council of Protestants cause a disturbance at an Anglican church service in Rome at which the Archbishop of CanterburyRobert Runcie is preaching in protest at his suggestion that the Pope could become the spiritual leader of a united church, while Ian Paisley joins protests outside the service.[39]
8 October – The latest CBI findings spark fear of a recession.
The Rover Group, Britain's largest independent carmaker, launches its new medium-sized hatchback, the second generation 200 Series which replaces the small four-door saloon of the same name and gives buyers a more modern and upmarket alternative to the ongoing Maestro range which has declined in popularity recently.
7 November – General Assembly of the Church of England votes to allow ordination of women.[2]
8 November – British Army and Royal Air Force troops are now manning London's ambulance services as the regular ambulance crews are still on strike.
10 November – Margaret Thatcher visits Berlin the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which brings the reunification of Germany forward after Germans were allowed to travel between West and East Berlin for the first time since the wall was built in 1961, and between West and East Germany for the first time since the partition of the country after the war.
14 November – The Merry Hill Shopping Centre on the DudleyEnterprise Zone in the West Midlands becomes fully operational with the opening of the final shopping mall. The development, which now employs around 6,000 people, first opened to retailers four years ago with several retail warehousing units, and has gradually expanded to become Europe's largest indoor shopping centre. Construction has now begun on the Waterfront office and leisure complex, also within the Enterprise Zone and overlooking the shopping centre, which will open to its first tenants next year.[42] On 7 November, Don and Roy Richardson, the Centre's developers, had announced plans to build the world's tallest building – a 2,000-foot tower including a hotel and nightclub – on land adjacent to the shopping complex; this never takes place.[43]
23 November – 69-year-old backbencher Sir Anthony Meyer challenges Margaret Thatcher's leadership of the Conservative Party, reportedly fearing that the party will lose the next general election after falling behind Labour in several recent opinion polls. Her leadership has never been challenged before in almost 15 years as party leader, more than 10 of which have been spent as prime minister.
The M42 motorway is completed when the final section opens, giving the town of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire (some 10 miles south of Birmingham) a direct link with the M5. Also completed this month is the section of the M40 between Warwick and the interchange with the M42 just south of Solihull. The rest of the M40, between Warwick and Oxford, will open next winter.[8]
The Beer Orders restrict the number of tied pubs that can be owned by large brewery groups to two thousand and require large brewer landlords to allow a guest ale to be sourced by tenants from someone other than their landlord.
12 December – Shares in newly privatised regional water industry utility companies (including the largest, Thames Water) achieve premiums of up to 68% in the first day of trading on the Stock Exchange.
23 December – Band Aid II gain the Christmas Number One with their charity record. 5 years ago, the original Band Aid single reached number 1 and achieved the highest sales of any single ever released in the UK.
24 December – The iconic British AirwaysFace advert is first aired. Made by advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, having been written by Graham Fink and Jeremy Clarke, with Hugh Hudson as director, it is often considered to became a classic television commercial.
27 December – SDP leader David Owen predicts another 10 years of Conservative rule, despite Neil Kinnock's Labour Party having a seven-point lead over the Conservatives with 46% of the vote in the final MORI poll of the decade.[10]
30 December – 22 people involved in the Lockerbie disaster are among those recognised in the New Year's Honours list, while there are knighthoods for former Liberal leader David Steel and the actress Maggie Smith becomes a Dame. Recipients of sporting honours include the boxer Frank Bruno and the golfer Tony Jacklin, both of whom are credited with MBEs.
Undated
Inflation increases significantly this year, standing at 7.8% – the highest for seven years.[11]
Fears of a recession are deepened by the economy's overall growth rate dropping to 1.7%, the lowest since 1981.[12]
House prices in London fall to an average of £86,800 this year – a 10% decrease on the 1988 average.
After spending most of the decade closed down, Whiteleys in London reopens as a shopping centre.
A record of more than 2.3 million new cars are sold in Britain this year. The Ford Escort is Britain's best selling car for the eighth year running, managing more than 180,000 sales, while the Volkswagen Golf is Britain's most popular foreign car with well over 50,000 sales. Ford achieves the largest sales of any carmaker in Britain for the 15th year in a row, helped by the launch of the third-generation Fiesta in April while Vauxhall has now overtaken the Rover Group as Britain's second best selling carmaker. The UK new car sales record has been broken six times in the last seven years.
Britain experiences its worst flu epidemic since the winter of 1975–76, with cases peaking in mid-November. Over a million infections are recorded by December, with an increase in flu-related deaths, while hospitals are forced to cancel surgery.
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