11 January – As the recession deepens, 335 employees at the
Peugeot car factory in
Coventry are made redundant, while
Ford is looking for up to 1,000 voluntary redundancies at its British factories. Thousands of jobs in the financial services sector are reportedly at threat, as the total UK unemployment figure is currently standing at nearly 1,800,000, but is expected to rise to well over 2,000,000 by the end of the year.
17 January – The
Gulf War begins, as the
Royal Air Force joins Allied aircraft in bombing raids on Iraq.[5]
18 January – In spite of the deepening recession, the Conservatives have climbed back to the top of the opinion polls, a MORI poll placing them five points ahead of Labour on 46%.[6]
19 January – It is announced that unemployment has reached more than 1.8 million, and experts warn that the figure will exceed 2 million later this year.
29 January –
John Major resists calls from the Labour Party for interest rates to be cut, in a bid to combat the recession.
25 February –
Alan Green,
Director of Public Prosecution, announces that the
Birmingham Six could soon be free from prison after seventeen years as their convictions for terrorism and mass murder are no longer considered safe and satisfactory.[7]
27 February – The National Institute of Economic and Social Research predicts that the recession will end this summer.
28 February – Iraq accepts a provisional ceasefire, and British troops halt their advance on
Baghdad.[8]
March
3 March – An
Ipsos MORI poll shows that
John Major is more popular with his voters than his Conservative government.
8 March –
Ribble Valley, the tenth safest Conservative constituency in Britain, is won by the
Liberal Democrats in a by-election.
10 March – The UK reportedly has the fastest pace in rising unemployment of all the
European Community countries.
14 March – The
Birmingham Six are freed after the
Court of Appeal quashes their convictions over the 1974 pub bombings in
Birmingham which killed 21 people and injured more than 160 others.[9]
15 March – Unemployment is now above 2,000,000 for the first time in two years. The number of British workers employed in the manufacturing industry has fallen below 5,000,000 for the first time since records began.
19 March – Norman Lamont predicts 2% economic contraction for this year.
21 March – Education Secretary
Kenneth Clarke announces plans to remove further education and sixth form colleges from local authority control.
28 March – An inquest in
Sheffield into the
Hillsborough disaster records a verdict of accidental death on the 95 people who died as a result of the tragedy in 1989. Many of the victims' families criticise the verdict in open court, as many of them had been hoping for a verdict of unlawful killing (which is eventually obtained in 2016), or an open verdict, and for criminal charges to be brought against the police officers who patrolled the game.[11]
3 April – Novelist
Graham Greene dies aged 86 at his home in
Vevey, Switzerland.
4 April
Social services in the
Orkney Islands are criticised for their handling of more than 100 children who have returned to their families after being taken away over allegations of child abuse.[12]
Labour retains the Neath constituency at a by-election with the Labour Party candidate
Peter Hain, receiving more than half of the vote.
8 April – The
Football Association announces plans for a new "super league" of eighteen clubs to replace the
Football League First Division as the highest division of English football. The move is attacked by smaller
Football League clubs, who fear that they could go out of business if TV revenue was confined to the proposed super league.
18 April – Despite the continuing recession, the
Conservatives are still top of the opinion polls as the latest
MORI poll puts them two points ahead of
Labour on 42%. The
Liberal Democrats have trebled their showing in the last fifteen months, now gaining 15% of the vote.[6]
Tottenham Hotspur win the
FA Cup for a record eighth time with a 2–1 win over
Nottingham Forest. Midfielder
Paul Gascoigne, a multimillion-pound transfer target for
Italian side
Lazio, suffers cruciate knee ligament damage early in the game and is not expected to play again in 1991.
21 May –
South Wales, which has some of the worst unemployment rates in Britain, receives a boost when the go-ahead is given for Japanese electrical company
Sony to build a new factory in
Bridgend that will create 1,400 jobs when it opens in 1993.
22 May – Nearly six months after the breakthrough in the
Channel Tunnel service tunnel, the breakthrough in the North rail tunnel is achieved. On the same day, road links to the British terminal are improved when the final section of the
M20 motorway is opened between
Maidstone and
Ashford, meaning that the tunnel's unbroken motorway link with
London has already been completed an estimated three years before the first trains move between Britain and France.[15][16]
24 May
Labour tops a MORI poll for the first time this year, as they stand six points ahead of the Conservatives on 43%.[6]
29 May – Economists warn that the economy is still in an "exceptionally steep" recession and that it could be another year before the first real signs of recovery become visible.
June
June –
Kia, the
Korean car company, begin importing cars to the United Kingdom for the first time, initially it will only import the
Pride (a rebadged version of the Japanese
Mazda 121), but at least one further model is expected to join it by 1994.[18]
25 June –
Nissan, the Japanese carmaker with a
plant atSunderland, starts "price wars" by reducing the cost of its cars in order to boost flagging sales brought on by the recession.
28 June
Seven months after her resignation as Prime Minister,
Margaret Thatcher announces that she will stand down as a
Member of parliament at the next general election, which has to be held within the next twelve months.[22]
The final breakthrough in the Channel Tunnel is achieved when the last section of clay in the South rail tunnel is bored away.[16]
July
July
South African-produced cars are imported to Britain for the first time, with the launch of the
Sao Penza, a rebadged version of the
Mazda 323. However, the brand and the car is not a success and imports end just 2 years later.[23]
Production of the
Vauxhall Belmont compact saloon ends ahead of the launch of the third generation
Astra range of hatchbacks and estates which goes the sale in the Autumn with saloon and convertible models arriving later.
3 July – Michael Shorey is convicted at the
Old Bailey of the July 1990 murders of Elaine Forsyth and Patricia Morrison, two estate agents with whom he shared a basement flat in north London. He is sentenced to two terms of
life imprisonment. The former EastEnders actress
Sandy Ratcliff, who provided Shorey with an alibi on the night of the murders, is subsequently convicted of perjury.[24]
4 July – Labour retains the Walton seat at a by-election, with new MP
Peter Kilfoyle gaining more than half of the vote.
8 July – Two suspected IRA terrorists shoot their way out of Brixton Prison in London.
11 July – Labour MP,
Terry Fields, joins the list of people jailed for refusal to pay the
poll tax after he receives a sixty-day prison sentence. He is the first MP to be jailed for refusing to pay the controversial tax which was introduced early last year.[26]
16 July – A government survey of children's school reading reveals that
Roald Dahl, who died eight months earlier, has now overtaken
Enid Blyton as the most popular author of children's books.
18 July – Economists warn that unemployment will reach 3,000,000 people (a level not seen since early-1987) by the end of next year.
19 July –
Dean Saunders becomes the most expensive footballer to be signed by an English club when he joins
Liverpool in a £2.9million transfer from
Derby County.
21 July – Motor racing driver
Paul Warwick, 21, is killed when his car crashes into a barrier during the fifth
Formula 3000 race at
Oulton Park.
23 July – The
Ministry of Defence proposes the merge of 22 army regiments as part of a general reform programme.[8]
12 August – The Times reports that every job vacancy is being chased by 22 applicants.
16 August – The
Bank of England declares that the worst of the current recession is now over.
23 August – Growing confidence over economic recovery has helped boost the Conservative government's popularity, as they return to the top of the MORI poll with a two-point lead over Labour putting them on 42%.[6]
Rioting breaks out on the
Ely council estate in
Cardiff.[28]
September
September – Gordon Roddick and
A. John Bird launch
The Big Issue, a then-monthly magazine to be sold by homeless people in response to growing number of rough sleepers on the streets of London.[29]
9 September – Rioting breaks out on the
Meadow Well council estate on
Tyneside, with local youths attacking police officers following the recent death of two local teenagers in a police pursuit. Racially motivated attacks on
Asian owned shops also involve looting and arson.
12 September – Unemployment has hit 2,400,000 – the highest level since the spring of 1988 – completing a 50% rise in just over a year. However, the rate of rising unemployment is slowing down and retail sales are improving.
13 September – Further rioting breaks out in
Tyneside.
17 September –
Neil Kinnock hits out at claims that he is to blame for his party falling behind in the opinion polls, sparking speculation that
John Major will call a general election within the next two months.
25 September – Kidnappers in Beirut release elderly hostage
Jackie Mann after over two years in captivity.[8]
October
October –
Vauxhall launches the third generation of its popular
Astra with hatchback and estate models with the saloon and convertible models arriving later.
2 October – Just over two weeks after
Neil Kinnock was damned by a poll as a "liability" to the Labour Party, the leader and his MPs are celebrating after they overtake the Conservatives by two points in the opinion polls.
11 October –
John Major outlines his vision of a "classless" Britain at a Conservative Party conference at
Blackpool, where his predecessor
Margaret Thatcher voices her support for him.
16 October – The ITV franchise auction results are announced and many notable names will go off the air, including
Thames Television,
TVS,
TSW,
TV-am and
ORACLE Teletext. The changes will take effect at midnight on 1 January 1993.
17 October – The smallest monthly rise in unemployment since last November is cited by the government as an "unmistakable" sign that the recession is drawing to a close.
18 October – Labour's hopes of election success are boosted by the latest
MORI poll, which shows them six points ahead of the Conservatives on 45%.[31]
23 October – In the legal case of R v R decided on appeal, the
Law Lords unanimously decide that
spousal rape is a crime in England and Wales, overturning the principle established by
Chief Justice Hale in 1736.[33]
29 October – Hopes that the recession is drawing to a close are boosted by
CBI findings, which show that manufacturers are now more optimistic than at any time in the past three years.
5 November –
Robert Maxwell, owner of numerous business interests including the Daily Mirror newspaper, is found dead off the coast of
Tenerife; his cause of death is unconfirmed, but reports suggest that he has committed
suicide.[36]
7 November – Labour retains control of Hemsworth at the by-election, with new MP
Derek Enright, while the
Liberal Democrats gain
Kincardine and Deeside from the Conservatives at another by-election. A third by-election sees the Conservatives lose the Langbaurgh constituency to Labour, with 35-year-old Indian-born candidate
Ashok Kumar becoming the new MP.
9 November – First ever controlled and substantial production of fusion energy achieved at the
Joint European Torus in
Oxford.[37]
15 November – Britain's hopes of economic recovery are dealt with a major blow when shares on the
Wall StreetStock Exchange fall by 120 points.
16 November – Two IRA bombers die in
St Albans,
Hertfordshire, when a bomb explodes prematurely.
18 November –
Terry Waite, a British hostage held in
Lebanon, is freed after four-and-a-half years in captivity.[38]
22–23 November – The
Communist Party of Great Britain votes to abandon its Marxist-Leninist constitution and reform itself as Democratic Left.[39]
23 November –
Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of rock band
Queen, announces that he is suffering from
AIDS, following lengthy media speculation about his health.
24 November – Freddie Mercury dies aged 45 at his home in
London, just 24 hours after going public with the news that he was suffering from AIDS.[40]
25 November – The
Court of Appeal quashes the convictions of Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite, for the murder of PC
Keith Blakelock in the
Broadwater Farm riot at
Tottenham,
North London, six years ago. Raghip and Braithwaite are released from prison, but Silcott remains imprisoned for a separate murder.
Freddie Mercury is cremated after a funeral service held at West London Crematorium.[42]
The government announces that joyriders who are found guilty should face a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment as well as unlimited fines and unlimited automatic driving bans. Joyriding has recently surged across Britain, with almost all of those involved being children and teenagers.[43]
1 December – Thousands of British shops, including retail giants
Asda and
Tesco, defy trading laws, and open their doors on a Sunday in a bid to boost trade that has been badly hit by the ongoing recession.
5 December – The Robert Maxwell business empire goes into receivership with debts in excess of £1,000,000,000, exactly one month after Robert Maxwell's death. The Daily Mirror reports that Maxwell had wrongly removed £350,000,000 from its pension fund shortly before he died.[44]
10 December –
Ronald Coase wins the
Nobel Prize in Economics "for his discovery and clarification of the significance of transaction costs and property rights for the institutional structure and functioning of the economy".[46]
12–15 December – Concentration of vehicle exhausts in London causes an estimated 160 deaths.[47]
19 December – Unemployment is now above 2,500,000 for the first time since early-1988.[49]
23 December –
Bohemian Rhapsody returns to the top of the British singles charts after sixteen years, with the proceeds from the rerelease being donated to the
Terence Higgins Trust.
27 December – The last MORI poll of 1991 shows that Labour are six points ahead of the Conservatives with 44% of the vote.[6]
29 December – A quarterly opinion poll shows that Neil Kinnock and Labour are three points ahead of John Major and the Conservatives, sparking hope for Labour that they will win the next general election (which has to be held within five months) or at least the election will result in a
hung parliament for the first time since 1974.
Undated
The economy remains rooted in the recession which began last year.[50]
Despite the deepening recession, inflation has been substantially decreased to 5.9%.[51]
The
National Curriculum assessment ("standard attainment tests" or SATs) is first carried out, at Key Stage 1 in primary schools in England.
Scout Groups may admit girls to all their sections.
Despite the onset of the recession and a sharp fall in new car sales (with fewer than 1,600,000 new cars being sold in 1991 compared to the record of more than 2,300,000 in 1989),
Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK's car plant at
Sunderland returns a profit for the first time, making £18,400,000 this year. It currently only makes the
Primera family saloon and hatchbacks there, but from August next year it will be joined by the new version of the smaller
Micra.[53]
^Howell, Dan.
"@danisnotonfire". Twitter. Archived from
the original on 1 October 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2015. thanks to everyone celebrating my 22nd year into the countdown of death!