Events from the year 1990 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents Monarch – Elizabeth II Prime Minister – Margaret Thatcher (Conservative) (until 28 November), John Major (Conservative) (starting 28 November)
Events
January 1 January Glasgow begins its year as European Capital of Culture, the first designated in the British Isles. Television debut of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean in a Thames Television special. 4 January – Premiere of the BBC One television comedy One Foot in the Grave, which stars Richard Wilson and Annette Crosbie. 13 January – Some 50,000 people demonstrate on the streets of London in support of Britain's ambulance workers, as the ongoing ambulance crew strike continues four months after it began. 18 January – The first MORI poll of the decade shows that Labour have a 12-point lead over the Conservatives with 48% of the vote. Liberal support is at its lowest for more than a decade as the Liberal Democrats gain just 5% of the vote. 19 January – Police in Johannesburg, South Africa, break up a demonstration against the cricket match played by rebel English cricketers led by Mike Gatting. 25 January – Burns' Day Storm: hurricane-force winds are reported to have killed 39 people in England and Wales. 29 January – Lord Justice Taylor publishes his report in the Hillsborough disaster, which claimed the lives of 95 Liverpool F.C. supporters on 15 April last year. He recommends that all top division stadiums are all-seater by 1994 and that the rest of the Football League follows suit by 1999, but rules out the government's proposed ID card scheme to combat football hooliganism as "unworkable".
February 9 February – Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran renews his predecessors' fatwa on British author Salman Rushdie, which was imposed last year following controversy over the author's book: The Satanic Verses. 15 February The UK and Argentina restore diplomatic relations after eight years. Diplomatic ties were broken off in response to Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982. Neil Kinnock's dream of being prime minister appears closer to becoming reality as the latest MORI poll shows Labour on 51% with a 17-point lead over the Conservatives.ipsos-mori.com 20 February – Three people are injured in Leicester city centre by a bomb explosion. 26 February – Fourteen people are killed as storms hit Britain. One of the worst-hit areas is Towyn in North Wales, where approximately 2,000 people are evacuated from their homes after huge waves smash a 200-yard hole in the sea wall and cause a major flood. 27 February – Economists warn that house prices could fall by up to 10% this year.
March 1 March – The Official Secrets Act 1989 comes into force. 7 March – Halifax Building Society reveals that house prices rose by 0.3% last month – the first monthly rise since July last year. 9 March – 37 people are arrested and 10 police officers injured in Brixton, London, during rioting against the new Community Charge. 13 March – The ambulance crew dispute ends after six months when workers agree to a 17.6% pay rise. 15 March Iraq hangs British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spying. Daphne Parish, a British nurse, is sentenced to fifteen years in prison for being an accomplice to Mr Bazoft. Britain's unemployment is now down to 1,610,000 – the lowest since 1978. However, it is a drop of just 2,000 on January's total and economists fear that a sharp rise in unemployment could soon begin as there are widespread fears of a recession. 20 March – Chancellor John Major delivers the first budget to be broadcast on television. 23 March – The Duke and Duchess of York's second daughter, Princess Eugenie of York, is born. 31 March – Poll tax riots in London as 200,000 people protest in the week preceding official introduction of the Community Charge.
April 1–25 April – 1990 Strangeways Prison riot in Manchester. 2 April – An earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale and centred on the Shropshire town of Bishop's Castle is felt throughout much of England and Wales. 4 April – Dr Raymond Crockett is struck off the medical register for using kidneys from Turkish immigrants who had been paid to donate them. 5 April – Aldi, a German discount food supermarket chain, opens its first store in Britain, in Stechford, Birmingham. 9 April – Four Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers are killed by an IRA bomb in County Down. 10 April – With nineteen inmates at Strangeways Prison in Manchester still staging a rooftop protest against prison conditions, rioting has broken out at prisons in Cardiff and Bristol. 11 April – Customs and Excise officers seize parts of an Iraqi supergun in Middlesbrough. 19 April – Labour have a 23-point lead over the Conservatives in the latest MORI poll. 29 April – Stephen Hendry, 21, becomes the youngest ever world snooker champion.
May May – Rover Group launches a new version of its popular Metro supermini, now branded as a Rover which has been the best-selling BL/Austin Rover car since its 1980 launch. At the same time, Vauxhall launches the Calibra, built by Opel in Germany, onto the UK market. 3 May – The end of house price inflation is declared by Halifax Building Society, two years after the housing market peaked. 4 May – Local council elections see Labour win more local council seats than the Conservatives. Neil Kinnock's hopes of victory in the next general election are further boosted by the fact that Labour have finished ahead in most of opinion polls for the last 12 months. 7 May – The Prince and Princess of Wales (Charles and Diana) travel to Budapest for the first postwar British royal visit there. 8 May – Billy Cartman, a 33-year-old grouter, becomes the sixth Briton to die in the construction of the Channel Tunnel when he is crushed by heavy machinery. 11 May – Inflation now stands at 9.4% – the highest level for eight years. 12 May – The final of the FA Cup ends in a 3–3 draw between Manchester United and Crystal Palace at Wembley Stadium. 17 May – Manchester United win the FA Cup final replay 1–0 at Wembley Stadium, with the only goal of the game being scored by defender Lee Martin. Manchester United have now won the FA Cup seven times, equalling the record already held by Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur. 19 May British agriculture Minister John Gummer publicly feeds a hamburger to his five-year-old daughter to counter rumours about the spread of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy and its transmission to humans. Unemployment is reported to have risen for the first time in nearly four years. 24 May Bobby Robson announces that he will not be renewing his contract as manager of the England national football team after the World Cup in Italy this summer. A by-election in Bootle is held, caused by the death of the sitting Labour MP Allan Roberts of cancer aged 46 on 21 March. The seat is retained for Labour by 43-year-old Michael Carr, but, unbeknownst to the people, he is in poor health and will die on 20 July. The "rump" Social Democratic Party (consisting of members who backed out of the merger with the Liberal Party which formed the Liberal Democrats two years ago) finishes behind the Monster Raving Loony Party in the by-election. 30 May – France prohibits British beef and live cattle imports as a precaution against fears of BSE being spread.
June 1 June – An army recruit is shot dead and two others are wounded by two suspected IRA gunmen in Lichfield, Staffordshire. 2 June – The long-serving actor Sir Rex Harrison dies of cancer aged 82 at his home in Manhattan, New York City. 3 June – The "rump" Social Democratic Party is wound up, two years after a splinter group refused to join up in the merger with the Liberal Democrats. 7 June – France, Italy and West Germany lift bans on British beef imposed during the BSE outbreak. 14 June The proposed high-speed rail link between London and the Channel Tunnel is shelved. Unemployment rises for the second month running, though by just over 4,000 to a total of 1,611,000 in May. 20 June – Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major proposes the "hard ecu", a currency which would circulate into parallel with national currencies as an alternative to full monetary union. 26 June – The Carlton Club in central London is bombed by the IRA, killing one and injuring 20.
July 2 July – Girobank is privatised by sale to the Alliance & Leicester Group. 4 July – England's hopes of World Cup glory are ended by a penalty shootout defeat in the semi-final against West Germany after a 1–1 draw in Turin. 10 July The first Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is opened by Princess Anne. UEFA lifts the ban on English football clubs in European competitions, five years after all teams were excluded due to the Heysel disaster. 11 July – Labour MP's accuse the Conservative government of "fraud" amid allegations that the 1,600,000 fall in unemployment since 1986 includes a million people leaving the list without finding work. 14 July – Trade and Industry Secretary Nicholas Ridley resigns following an interview in The Spectator in which he likened the European Community to Hitler's Germany. 16 July An official report reveals that High Street sales are at their lowest since 1980, sparking further fears of a recession. Nigel Mansell, Britain's most successful racing driver of the last 10 years, announces that he is to retire from Grand Prix races at the end of the 1990 season. Graham Taylor, the manager of Aston Villa F.C., is appointed as the England team's new manager. 17 July – German food superstore chain Aldi opens its first British store in Birmingham and plans to have up to 200 stores across the country by 1993. 19 July – Saddam Hussein, dictator of Iraq, frees Daphne Parish from prison for "humanitarian reasons" and she returns to Britain. 20 July An IRA bomb explodes at Stock Exchange Tower, the base of the London Stock Exchange. Michael Carr, the newly-elected Labour MP for Bootle, dies after just 57 days in parliament from a heart attack at the age of 43. 24 July – A Roman Catholic nun and three police officers are killed by an IRA landmine in County Armagh. 30 July – An IRA car bomb kills British MP Ian Gow, a staunch unionist, six days after he assured the IRA that the British government would never surrender to them. 31 July – The England cricket team defeats the India national cricket team in a high-scoring Lord's test match totalling 1,603 runs.
August 1 August – British Airways Flight 149 is seized by the Iraqi Army at Kuwait International Airport following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. 3 August – The 1990 heat wave peaks with a temperature of 37.1 °C (98.8 °F) recorded at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. 5 August – Margaret Thatcher announces her desire for a new Magna Carta to guarantee basic rights for all European citizens. 14 August – A survey carried out by the BBC reveals that 20% of taxpayers in England and Wales had not paid their Community Charge by 30 June this year. 16 August – A MORI poll shows that Labour now has a 15-point lead over the Conservatives with 50% of the vote, while support for the Liberal Democrats has doubled to 10% over the last seven months. 22 August – James MacMillan's symphonic piece The Confession of Isobel Gowdie premieres at The Proms in London. 23 August British hostages in Iraq are paraded on TV. Ford launches the fifth generation of its Escort hatchback, estate and cabriolet and Orion saloon. The two models have combined sales figures which account more than 10% of new cars sold in Britain. Sales of the two new models begin in Britain and the rest of Europe next month. However, the new generation models are widely panned by the motoring press due to their bland styling and driving experience as well as an old engine range from their predecessors. 24 August – Irish hostage Brian Keenan is released in Beirut, Lebanon, after being held a hostage there for more than four years. 27 August