British Rail retires its last Class 55 Deltic diesel-electric locomotives from service.
10–15 January – The lowest ever UK temperature of −27.2 °C is recorded at Braemar, in Aberdeenshire. This equals the record set in the same place in 1895, and the record will be equalled again at Altnaharra in 1995.[2]
14 January – Mark Thatcher is found safe and well in the Sahara, six days after going missing.[4]
18 January – "A Complaint of Rape", the third episode of BBC Onefly on the wall documentary Police, showing police treating a female complainant dismissively, is broadcast, leading to changes in police treatment of rape allegations.[5]
21 January – Miners vote against strike action and accept the National Coal Board offer of a 9.3% pay rise.
26 January – Unemployment in the United Kingdom is recorded at over 3,000,000 people for the first time since the 1930s.[6][7] However, the 11.5% of the workforce currently unemployed is approximately half of the record percentage which was reached half a century ago.[8]
February
February – Korean cars are imported to Britain for the first time with the launch of the Hyundai Pony, a range of three and five-door hatchbacks similar in size to the Ford Escort.
1 February – Sales of tabloid newspapers are reported[citation needed] to have been boosted substantially since last summer by the introduction of bingo. The Sun has reportedly enjoyed the biggest rise in sales, now selling more than 4,000,000 copies a day on a regular basis.
5 February – Laker Airways collapses, leaving 6,000 passengers stranded, with debts of £270,000,000.[9]
6 February – The Queen commemorates her Pearl Jubilee.
12 February – Opening of the first Next clothing store, a rebranding of the merged Joseph Hepworth and Kendall chains masterminded by George Davies.[10] It specialises in women's clothing.[11]
1 April – A twelve-year-old unnamed Birmingham boy becomes one of the youngest people in England and Wales to be convicted of murder after he admits murdering an eight-year-old boy, and is sentenced to be detained indefinitely.[1]
4 April – Falklands War: The British Falkland Islands government surrenders, placing the islands in Argentine control.
5 April – Falklands War: Royal Navy task force sets sail to the Falklands from Portsmouth.[18]
7 April – Britain declares a 200-mile "exclusion zone" around the Falklands.
15 April – Actor Arthur Lowe dies suddenly of a stroke aged 66 after collapsing in his dressing room at The Alexandra, Birmingham, the previous day.
17 April – By proclamation of the Queen of Canada on Parliament Hill, Canada repatriates its constitution, granting full political independence from the United Kingdom; included is the country's first entrenched bill of rights.
The first British serviceman dies in the Falklands conflict, when his Sea King helicopter crashes.
25 April – Falklands War: Royal Marines recapture South Georgia.[18]
29 April – Daniel and Christopher Smith, Britain's first twins conceived through in vitro fertilisation, are born to Josephine and Stewart Smith at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
30 April – The Conservatives return to the top of the opinion polls for the first time since late-1979, with the latest MORI poll showing that they have 43% of the vote, ahead of the SDP–Liberal Alliance.[21]
22 May – FA Cup holders Tottenham Hotspur draw 1–1 with Queen's Park Rangers in the Wembleyfinal, forcing a replay. Tottenham are without their Argentine players Ossie Ardiles and Ricardo Villa, who have been temporarily removed from the team following barracking from rival fans over their home country's involvement in the war with Britain.
21 May – Falklands War: frigate HMS Ardent is sunk by Argentine aircraft in Falkland Sound, killing 22 sailors.[23]
23 May – Falklands War: frigate HMS Antelope is hit by Argentine aircraft and explodes.
Israeli ambassador to the UK Shlomo Argov is shot in London,[28] an event which provokes the 1982 Lebanon War; he dies in 2003 in Israel without regaining full consciousness.
14 June – Falklands War ends as British forces reach the outskirts of Stanley after "yomping" across East Falkland from San Carlos Bay. They arrive to find the Argentine forces flying white flags of surrender. The formal Argentine surrender in the Falklands War is signed this evening.[2]
16 June – Welsh miners go on strike to support health workers demanding a 12% pay rise.[31]
22 June – A British AirwaysBoeing 747 suffers a temporary four-engine flameout and damage to the exterior of the plane, after flying through the otherwise undetected ash plume from Indonesia's Galunggung.
23 June – Support for the Conservative government continues to rise, mainly due to the success of the Falklands campaign, with a MORI opinion poll showing that they have a 51% approval rating.[21]
5 July – England draw 0–0 with hosts Spain and are eliminated from the World Cup in the second group stage. Ron Greenwood retires as England manager after five years and is succeeded by Ipswich Town manager Bobby Robson.
Production of the Ford Cortina ends after twenty years and five generations, the final two of which were virtually identical. The Cortina's successor, the Sierra, will be built at Dagenham and in Belgium and will go on sale in the Autumn, though in slightly lower volumes than the smaller Escort which is now Ford's best-selling car.
Exclusion zone around the Falklands is lifted.
Margaret Thatcher rejects calls in parliament for a return of the death penalty for terrorist murder.
23 July – A coroner's jury returns a verdict of suicide on Roberto Calvi.
August
1 August – The government creates Britoil as the privatised successor to the British National Oil Corporation.[34]
5 September – Air ace and war hero Sir Douglas Bader dies suddenly of heart failure aged 72 whilst being driven through Chiswick, London.
7 September – Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expresses her concern at the growing number of children living in single-parent families, but says that she is not opposed to divorce.
22 September – An estimated 14% of the workforce is now reported to be unemployed.[36]
23 September – Nigel Lawson announces that no industry should remain in state ownership unless there is an "overwhelming" case.
27 September – General Motors launches the Spanish-built Opel Corsa which will be sold in Britain from April next year as the Vauxhall Nova. The new front-wheel drive range of small hatchbacks and saloons will effectively replace the Chevette. However, the transport workers union has thrown the future of the new car which is expected to sell around 50,000 units a year, into jeopardy by blocking imports to Britain.[37]
After well over 100 years, the UK Inland Telegram service closes. Telegram figures peaked after the First World War with over 100m sent annually; by the time the service closes the annual figure is down to less than 3 million.
October
8 October – With the economy now climbing out of recession after more than two years, Margaret Thatcher vows to stick to her neoliberal economic policies, and blames previous governments for the decline that she inherited when entering power more than three years ago.
15 October – The Ford Sierra is launched as a replacement for the long-running Cortina and its ultra-modern aerodynamic styling causes controversy among potential buyers who for years had been drawn to the conventional Cortina but it soon goes on to be a sales success.[39]
November – The Government announces that more than 400,000 council houses have been sold off under the right-to-buy scheme within the last three years.[42]
15 November – Unemployment remains in excess of 3,000,000 people – 13.8% of the workforce.
16 November – Comedian and actor Arthur Askey dies aged 82 in London only four months after his final performance.
28 November – Opinion polls show the Conservative government with an approval rating of up to 44% and well on course for a second successive electoral victory, 13 points ahead of Labour. Support for the Alliance has halved in the space of a year.[44]
British chemist Aaron Klug wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes".[45]
12 December – Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp: 30,000 women hold hands and form a human chain around the 9-mile (14.5 km) perimeter fence.
15 December – The British colony of Gibraltar gains a pedestrian link to Spain, as the gates which separated the two states are re-opened by the Spanish government after thirteen years.
Inflation has fallen to a 10-year low of 8.6%, although some 1,500,000 jobs have reportedly been lost largely due to Government policy in attaining this end.[47]
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