Events from the year 1986 in the United Kingdom. It is particularly noted for the "Big Bang" deregulation of the financial markets.
Incumbents Monarch – Elizabeth II Prime Minister – Margaret Thatcher (Conservative)
Events
January January – The Vauxhall Belmont compact saloon goes on sale, giving buyers a traditional saloon alternative to the Astra hatchback and estate models. The car would remain in production until September 1991. 9 January – Michael Heseltine resigns as Defence Secretary over the Westland affair. 12 January – The game show Catchphrase begins on ITV hosted by Roy Walker along with the computer generated character Mr. Chips. It concludes in 2002, but is revived in 2013. 14 January – The Salafi jihadist group al-Muhajiroun begins to operate in the UK. 20 January – The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel, which they hope to open by the early-1990s. 24 January – Leon Brittan resigns as Trade and Industry Secretary over the Westland affair. 31 January – Unemployment for this month has increased to 3,204,900 – a postwar high which accounts for 14.4% of the workforce.
February February Heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures affect most of Britain during the month. The British-built Peugeot 309 goes on sale in Britain, four months after its continental launch. It is built at the former Rootes/Chrysler factory at Ryton, near Coventry which is also set to produce a larger Peugeot saloon model from next year. 6 February – The UK Government scraps plans to sell Austin Rover to Ford. 12 February – The Franco-British Channel Fixed Link Treaty is signed at Canterbury as the Channel Tunnel plans move forward. 15 February – In the Wapping dispute, fifty-eight people are arrested by police at a demonstration. 17 February – The UK signs the Single European Act.
March March – Ford launches a new generation of its big-selling Escort and Orion ranges. 4 March – The national tabloid newspaper Today launches from Wapping. It pioneers the use of computer photo typesetting and full-colour offset printing at a time when British national newspapers are still using Linotype machines and letterpress. 5 March – The High Court disqualifies and fines 81 Labour councillors for failing to set a rate. 13 March – The Sun newspaper alleges that comedian Freddie Starr ate a live hamster. 18 March – Inheritance tax replaces Capital Transfer Tax. 19 March – Buckingham Palace announces the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson; they will be married later this year. 23 March – Chelsea are the first winners of the Football League's new Full Members' Cup, beating Manchester City 5–4 in the final at Wembley, although Manchester City clawed the deficit to a single goal in the last five minutes after being 5–1 down. 29 March – The first high-speed catamaran ferry is introduced into service in the British Isles, Our Lady Patricia on Sealink British Ferries' Portsmouth–Ryde passage. 31 March The Greater London Council is abolished, as are the metropolitan county councils of West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. A fire causes extensive damage at Hampton Court Palace in Surrey. The Haig Pit, Whitehaven, Cumbria closes.
April April – Hanson Trust concludes its takeover of the Imperial Group for £2.5 billion. 1 April The extension of London Underground's Piccadilly line to Heathrow Terminal 4 is opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales (Charles and Diana). Trains do not stop at the station until 12 April. Establishment of National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside group of institutions, funded through national government. 7 April – Clive Sinclair sells rights to ZX Spectrum and other inventions to Amstrad. 10 April – The Fulham by-election, caused by the death of the sitting Conservative MP Martin Stevens on 10 January, is held. The seat is lost to Labour, under Nick Raynsford. 15 April – The Shops Bill 1986, which would have liberalised Sunday shopping, is defeated in the House of Commons on its second reading, the last time that a government bill will fall at this stage, one of only four defeats in the Commons for Mrs Thatcher and the only time an entire government bill is defeated during her tenure. 17 April Journalist John McCarthy is kidnapped in Beirut, where three other hostages are found dead. The Revolutionary Cells (RZ) claims responsibility as revenge for the recent American bombing of Libya. McCarthy will be held for more than 5 years. A treaty is signed to end the supposed Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly. 20 April – Oxford United F.C., who joined the Football League only in 1962 and are in the First Division for the first time, win the Football League Cup with a 3–0 win over Queens Park Rangers at Wembley. 24 April – Wallis, Duchess of Windsor dies in her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, aged 89, outliving her husband (the former King Edward VIII) by fourteen years. 28 April – The first phase of the MetroCentre, Europe's largest indoor shopping centre, in Gateshead, is opened. The remainder of the centre is set to open this autumn. 29 April – The Duchess of Windsor is buried at Frogmore. 30 April – Rioting erupts overnight in prisons across Britain. Dozens of prisoners escape, while prisoners at Stafford Prison set the prison canteen alight by smashing windows and dumping a burning mattress onto the roof. The worst disturbances come at Northeye Prison in Sussex, where a 70-strong mob of prisoners takes over the jail and sets fire to the canteen, hospital wing and sports hall.
May May – The last Talbot badged passenger cars are built in Britain and France by Peugeot who will continue making their own cars at the former Rootes Group plant near Coventry and the former Simca production facilities in France. Peugeot is to continue the Talbot brand for commercial vehicles and production of the Horizon range will continue in Spain and Finland until next year. 5 May – Liverpool win the Football League First Division title for a record 16th time after winning 1–0 at Chelsea. Kenny Dalglish, in his first season as the club's player-manager, scores the goal which gives Liverpool the title. 8 May Labour makes large gains in local council elections, collecting 37% of the votes nationally compared to the Conservatives on 34% and the Alliance on 26%. These are the first national elections to be held since the recent abolition of the metropolitan councils. By-elections are held in West Derbyshire and Ryedale, caused by the resignation of Matthew Parris and the death of John Spence, both Conservative MPs, respectively. The Conservatives hold West Derbyshire under Patrick McLoughlin but lose Ryedale to the Liberals. Former Labour MP and life peer Manny Shinwell, Baron Shinwell dies at the age of 101, making him the second longest-lived British MP until 2008. 10 May – The first all-Merseyside FA Cup final ends in a 3–1 win for Liverpool over Everton, who become only the third team this century to win the double, having already secured the Football League First Division title. 20 May – The Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Act revises the prohibited degree of kinship for marriage. 21 May – The Harrison Birtwistle opera The Mask of Orpheus premieres in London.
June 10 June – Patrick Joseph Magee is found guilty of the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment. 12 June Derek Hatton, leader of Liverpool council, is expelled from the Labour Party for belonging to the entryist Militant group. Austin Rover is renamed the Rover Group four years after the name change from British Leyland. 14 June – The Queen rides to Trooping the Colour on horseback for the last time. 23 June – Patrick Magee is jailed for life for the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing as well as other IRA bombings. 24 June – Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party stage protest at dissolution of Northern Ireland Assembly. 29 June Richard Branson beats the speed record for a transatlantic crossing by boat in Virgin Atlantic Challenger II but is denied the Blue Riband award. The Association football World Cup ends in Mexico with Argentina as winners and West Germany runners-up, but England's Gary Lineker wins the Golden Boot, having finished as the competition's leading scorer with six goals. Lineker, who has been at Everton for the last year and is the First Division's top scorer, is reported to be on the verge of a transfer to FC Barcelona of Spain.
July July – Nissan begins production of the Bluebird at its landmark factory near Sunderland. 1 July – Gary Lineker becomes the most expensive British footballer ever in a £2.75 million move from Everton to FC Barcelona. 2 July – 24 hours after Gary Lineker's transfer, Ian Rush sets a new transfer record for a British footballer when he agrees a £3.2 million move from Liverpool to Juventus of Italy, but is loaned back to Liverpool for a season and will not play his first game for Juventus until at least August 1987. 4 July – A policeman is cleared of the manslaughter of five-year-old John Shorthouse, who was killed in an armed raid on a house in Birmingham in August last year. 10 July – Austin Rover launches its new Honda-based Rover 800 executive car, which replaces the decade-old Rover SD1 and is part of a joint venture with Japanese carmaker Honda. The car will also be sold in the United States under the Sterling marque. The Honda version will be badged as the Honda Legend. 12 July – Rioting breaks out at Portadown in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics. 17 July It is announced that unemployment rose to 3,220,400 in June. It has now exceeded 3 million for nearly five years. The Newcastle-under-Lyme by-election, caused by the resignation of the sitting Labour MP John Golding on 24 June, is held. His wife Llin Golding is elected the new Labour MP. 23 July – Prince Andrew, Duke of York, marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey in London. 24 July–2 August – The Commonwealth Games are held in Edinburgh. 25 July Building Societies Act allows building societies to offer the same personal finance services as banks. The Bank of England withdraws its guidance on mortgage loans. Social Security Act introduces Family Credit, a tax credit for low-paid workers with children. 26 July – A passenger train collides with a van in the Lockington rail accident in East Yorkshire; nine people are killed, eight on the train and one in the van. 28 July – Estate agent Suzy Lamplugh vanishes after a viewing in London. She is declared legally dead in 1994, but what happened will remain unknown, her body will still not have been found and no-one will have been formally charged with her murder. 30 July – A MORI poll shows that Labour are now nine points ahead of the Conservatives with 41% of the vote, with Liberal/SDP Alliance support now at 25%.
August 4 August – Mathematician Simon Donaldson is awarded a Fields Medal. 8 August – Rival gangs of Manchester United and West Ham United fans clash on a Sealink ferry bound for Amsterdam where the two clubs are playing pre-season friendlies. The UEFA ban on English clubs in European competitions is continuing for a second season, and there are now fears that English clubs may not even be able to play friendlies overseas. 13 August – The Eurotunnel Group is formed to operate the Channel Tunnel. 15 August – The latest MORI poll shows that the Conservatives have eliminated Labour's nine-point lead and drawn level with them by gaining 37% in the latest opinion poll, in the space of just over two weeks. 16 August – Figures released by the government reveal that a record of nearly 3,100,000 people claimed Unemployment Benefit last month, although the official total of unemployed people in Britain is still short of the record of nearly 3,300,000 which was set two years ago.