January • 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. • 8 January – 44 people are killed in the
Kegworth air disaster. • 11 January • Accident investigators say that the Kegworth air disaster was caused when pilot Kevin Hunt, who survived the crash, accidentally shut down the wrong engine. •
Abbey National building society offers free shares to its 5,500,000 members. • 14 January – Muslims demonstrate in
Bradford against
The Satanic Verses, a book written by
Salman Rushdie, burning copies of the book in the city streets. • 19 January – Unemployment fell by 66,000 in December, to a nine-year low of just more than 2 million. It was last at this level in 1980. • 25 January –
John Cleese wins a
libel case after the
Daily Mirror described him as having become like his character
Basil Fawlty in the sitcom
Fawlty Towers. • 27 January – Aviation pioneer Sir
Thomas Sopwith dies aged 101 at his home in Hampshire.
February • 5 February – At 6pm, the world's first commercial
DBS system,
Sky Television goes on air. Three new services –
Sky News,
Sky Movies and
Eurosport – with the fourth being
Sky Channel. • 12 February – Belfast lawyer
Pat Finucane is murdered by the
Ulster Defence Association. • 14 February –
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of
Iran places a
fatwa with an order to kill on author
Salman Rushdie following the publication of his controversial book
The Satanic Verses, which has caused outrage among the Islamic community of Britain. • 19 February –
The Industrial Society offices at 3 Carlton House Terrace in London are severely damaged by fire. • 20 February –
Clive Barracks is damaged in a
bombing. • 23 February • By-elections are held in
Richmond (North Yorkshire) and
Pontypridd in Wales following the departure of
Conservative MP
Leon Brittan to the
European Commission, and the death of
Labour MP
Brynmor John on Boxing Day 1988 respectively. 27-year-old
William Hague wins Richmond for the Conservatives, and
Kim Howells wins Pontypridd for Labour. •
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 fakes his death in an episode watched by more than 20 million viewers.
March • 4 March –
Purley rail crash: two trains collide at
Purley, Surrey killing six people. • 6 March – Two people are killed in the
Glasgow Bellgrove rail accident. • 7 March –
Iran breaks off
diplomatic relations with the UK over
Salman Rushdie's controversial book
The Satanic Verses. • 16 March – Unemployment is now below 7% for the first time in eight years, but still remains marginally more than 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. • 26 March –
Nigel Mansell wins the
Brazilian
Grand Prix.
April • 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 April –
Nick Faldo becomes the first English winner of the
Masters Tournament in golf. The youngest victim is a 10-year-old boy, the oldest is 67-year-old Gerard Baron, brother of the late former Liverpool player
Kevin Baron. 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 owing to the Hillsborough disaster. • 17 April –
Home Secretary Douglas Hurd announces plans to make all-seater stadiums compulsory for all
Football League First Division clubs to reduce the risk of a repeat of the Hillsborough tragedy. • 18 April • The
European Commission accuses Britain of failing to meet standards on drinking water. • 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. •
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. • 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. • Channel Tunnel workers end their 14-day strike. • Novelist Dame
Daphne du Maurier dies aged 81 at her home in
Par, Cornwall. • 20 April • 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. • A
MORI poll shows
Conservative and
Labour support equal at 41%. • 24 April – The BBC's
Ceefax teletext is running as only a partial service today owing to a strike by broadcasting unions. • 27 April –
Security Service Act for the first time places
MI5 on a statutory basis. • 28 April •
John Cannan, of
Sutton Coldfield, is sentenced to
life imprisonment with a recommendation that he should never be released after being found guilty of murdering one woman and sexually assaulting two others. The prime suspect also in the
disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh, he will die in prison in 2024. • 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. • 4 May –
Margaret Thatcher completes ten years as Prime Minister – the first British Prime Minister of the 20th century to do so. • 5 May – The
Vale of Glamorgan constituency in
South Wales is seized by the
Labour Party in a
by-election after 38 years of
Conservative control. • 8 May – More than 3,000
British Rail employees launch an unofficial overtime ban, walking out in protest at the end of their eight-hour shifts. • 14 May – A public inquiry, headed by
Lord Justice Taylor, begins into the Hillsborough disaster. • 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.* 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. • 20 May –
Liverpool win the
FA Cup final with a 3–2 victory over their
Merseyside rivals Everton. 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. • 24 May • Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of "Yorkshire Ripper"
Peter Sutcliffe, is awarded £600,000 in
High Court damages against the satirical magazine
Private Eye. • 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. • 26 May –
Arsenal F.C. win the
First Division league title against
Liverpool, with a goal from
Michael Thomas in the last minute of
the last game of the season. Arsenal have now won nine league titles, ending an 18 year wait to be crowned champions of England. Their win denied Liverpool of a domestic double. • 30 May – Passport office staff in
Liverpool begin an indefinite strike in protest against staffing levels.
June • 13 June – The sixteenth
James Bond film,
Licence to Kill, premieres in
London. • 15 June – By-elections are held in
Glasgow Central and
Vauxhall, caused by the death of
Labour MP
Bob McTaggart on 23 March and the resignation of Labour MP
Stuart Holland, respectively. Labour holds both seats. • 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. • 22 June • Police arrest 260 people celebrating the
summer solstice at
Stonehenge. • London Underground workers stage their second one-day strike of the year. • 24 June – A
riot takes place in
Dewsbury.
July • 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. • 2 July – An IRA bomb kills a British soldier in
Hanover,
West Germany. • 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. • Actor
Laurence Olivier, Lord Olivier, dies aged 82 at his home in
Ashurst, West Sussex. • 13 July – The fall in unemployment continues, with the tally now standing at slightly more than 1,800,000 – the lowest in nearly a decade. • 17 July – 1,500 British tourists are delayed for up to eight hours by French air traffic control strikes. • 19 July – The
BBC programme
Panorama accuses
Shirley Porter, Conservative Leader of Westminster City Council, of
gerrymandering. • 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%.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120923031349/http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=103 • 25 July – The
Princess of Wales opens the
Landmark Aids Centre, a day centre for people with AIDS, in London. • 28 July – The industrial action by British Rail drivers is reported to be coming to an end as most of the train drivers have ended their overtime ban.
August • 1 August –
Charlotte Hughes of
Marske-by-the-Sea in
Cleveland, believed to be the oldest living person in England, celebrates her 112th birthday. • 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. • 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. • 20 August –
Marchioness disaster: A pleasure boat is in collision with a dredger on the Thames in London in the early hours; 51 people are killed. • 26 August –
Betteshanger, the last colliery in
Kent, closes, signalling the end of the
Kent Coalfield after 93 years. • 29 August – Stone-throwing youths cause mayhem at the
Notting Hill Carnival in London, in which many innocent bystanders are injured. • 30 August – The
National Trust's house at
Uppark in West Sussex is severely damaged by fire. • 31 August –
Buckingham Palace confirms that
The Princess Royal and Captain
Mark Phillips are separating after 16 years of marriage.
September • 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 people are killed in the
Deal barracks bombing. • 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.
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 Canterbury Robert 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. • 8 October – The latest
CBI findings spark fear of a recession. • 10 October – The
World Wrestling Federation holds its first UK event, at the
London Arena. • 11 October • 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. • The
England national football team qualifies for next Summer's
FIFA World Cup in Italy when drawing 0–0 with
Poland in
Warsaw. • 12 October – Michael Knighton drops his bid to buy Manchester United. • 15 October – Recession fears deepen as stock market prices continue to fall dramatically. • 16 October – The Social and Liberal Democrats, formed last year from the merger of the
Social Democratic Party and
Liberal Party, are renamed the
Liberal Democrats. • 19 October • The
Guildford Four are released from prison after the
High Court quashes their convictions for the 1975 terrorist atrocity. • Labour now has a 10-point lead over the Conservatives in the last MORI poll, with 48% of the vote.* 21 October – Thousands of people attend a memorial service for
Laurence Olivier at
Westminster Abbey, during which his ashes are laid to rest in
Poets' Corner. • 23 October – The police force are now taking medical emergency 999 calls in London owing to the ongoing strike by ambulance crews. • 26 October –
Nigel Lawson resigns as
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and is replaced by
John Major, while
Douglas Hurd becomes Foreign Secretary. • 31 October –
British Rail announces that the proposed high-speed rail link to the
Channel Tunnel is being postponed for at least one more year.
November • 4 November – First showing of the
clay animation film
A Grand Day Out, introducing the characters
Wallace and Gromit, at a film festival in
Bristol. • 7 November – General Assembly of the
Church of England votes to allow ordination of women. 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. • 16 November – The
Children Act alters the law in regard to children in England and Wales; in particular, it introduces the notion of
parental responsibility in access and custody matters. • 21 November • The
House of Commons is televised live for the first time. • 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. • 30 November – Russell Shankland and Dean Hancock, serving eight-year prison sentences for the
manslaughter of taxi driver David Wilkie in
South Wales during the
miners strike, are released from prison on the fifth anniversary of the crime.
December • December • 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.[https://web.archive.org/web/20100920150239/http://cbrd.co.uk/histories/chronologymaps/1989.shtml • Last
coypu in the wild in Britain is trapped in
East Anglia. • 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. • 3 December •
Margaret Thatcher, alongside American president
George Bush and Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev, declare the end of the
Cold War after more than 40 years. • 9,000 workers at British carmaker
Vauxhall threaten to go on strike. • A new-look
Band Aid forms for a new version of the ''
Do They Know It's Christmas?'' charity single for African famine relief. • 5 December –
Margaret Thatcher defeats
Anthony Meyer in a leadership election for the
Conservative Party, but 60 MPs do not vote for her. • 6 December – The original run of
Doctor Who is ended by the
BBC after 26 years. • 8 December –
ITV attracts a new record audience of nearly 27,000,000 for the episode of
Coronation Street in which
Alan Bradley (
Mark Eden) is fatally run over by a
Blackpool tram. • 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. • 18 December • The
Labour Party abandons its policy on
closed shops. • The second phase of the
M40 motorway, linking north
Oxfordshire with the
Warwickshire/
Worcestershire border on the outskirts of the
West Midlands conurbation, is opened. The final phase, which links this new motorway with the original London-
Oxford section, is due to open within the next year.* 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 Airways Face 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.[https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8280050.stm • 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.* Fears of a recession are deepened by the economy's overall growth rate dropping to 1.7%, the lowest since 1981.[https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/nov/25/gdp-uk-1948-growth-economy#_methods=onPlusOne%2C_ready%2C_close%2C_open%2C_resizeMe%2C_renderstart%2Concircled%2Cdrefresh%2Cerefresh%2Conload&id=I0_1391725729646&parent=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com&pfname=&rpctoken=61842758 • 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. • Remains of
The Rose and
Globe Theatre discovered in London. • Permanent gates are installed across
Downing Street in London by the end of the year. •
Red kites reintroduced to England and Scotland. • 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 more than 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. More than a million infections are recorded by December, with an increase in flu-related deaths, while hospitals are forced to cancel surgery. ==Publications==