Events from the year 2001 in the United Kingdom. The year was dominated by the foot-and-mouth crisis.
Incumbents Monarch – Elizabeth II Prime Minister – Tony Blair (Labour)
Events
January 5 January – A report by the Department of Health suggests that Dr Harold Shipman, convicted of 15 murders a year ago, may have killed more than 300 patients since the 1970s. 8 January The High Court rules that the identities and whereabouts of the two killers of James Bulger are to be kept secret for the rest of their lives. Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both now aged 18, are expected to be released from custody later this year. Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 comes into effect, reducing the age of consent for male homosexual sexual acts to that for heterosexual and lesbian acts, sixteen (seventeen in Northern Ireland). 9 January – Sven-Göran Eriksson begins his job as manager of the England football team six months ahead of schedule, having resigned from his previous job as Lazio manager. He had signed a five-year contract with The Football Association on 30 October 2000 to succeed Kevin Keegan. 12 January – Marie Therese Kouao and Carl Manning are sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Kouao's niece Victoria Climbié, who died in 2000 after suffering horrific abuse and neglect at the hands of the couple in their London home. Victoria (aged eight) had been living with the pair since her parents sent her to England to receive a good education. 24 January – Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Mandelson resigns from the cabinet for the second time. 25 January – After briefly slipping behind the Conservatives in an opinion poll four months ago, Labour are looking all set for victory in the forthcoming general election as they score 49% in the latest MORI poll and open up a 20-point lead over their rivals. 31 January – The Scottish Court in the Netherlands convicts a Libyan and acquits another for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which crashed in Lockerbie in 1988. Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah (aged 44) is cleared, but Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi is found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum term of 20 years.
February 19 February – Foot and mouth crisis begins. 21 February – A bomb disguised as a hand-held torch explodes outside a Territorial Army barracks in Shepherd's Bush, seriously injuring a 14-year-old cadet who picked it up. 25 February – Liverpool beat Birmingham City on penalties after a 1–1 draw in the Football League Cup final – the first cup final to be played at Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, since Wembley closed for redevelopment. 28 February – A rail crash near Selby kills 10 people.
March 4 March – A car bomb explodes outside the BBC's main news centre at White City, west London, seriously injuring a London Underground worker. The Real IRA are suspected of being behind the attack. 8 March – The wreckage of Donald Campbell's speedboat Bluebird K7 is raised from the bottom of Coniston Water in Cumbria, 34 years after Campbell was killed in an attempt to break the world water speed record. 15 March – Donald Campbell's body is recovered from Lake Coniston, 34 years after he died in an attempt to break the land water speed record. 17 March – Eden Project opens to the public near St Austell, Cornwall; conceived by Tim Smit with design by Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners. 18 March – Claire Marsh (aged 18) becomes the youngest woman in Britain to be convicted of rape after pinning down a woman who was raped by a pair of teenagers in west London. She is sentenced to seven years in prison, while her accomplices (aged 15 and 18) are jailed for five years. 31 March – Stuart Lubbock, a meat-factory worker from Harlow in Essex, dies under suspicious circumstances at the home of television presenter Michael Barrymore.
April 5 April – Perry Wacker, a Dutch lorry driver, is jailed for 14 years for the manslaughter of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants who were found suffocated in his lorry at Dover ferry port in June last year. 15 April – Manchester United win the FA Premier League title for the third season in succession, and the seventh time in nine seasons. 23 April Jane Andrews, a former personal assistant to Sarah, Duchess of York, goes on trial accused of murdering her fiancé Thomas Cressman. Manchester United pay a British record fee of £19million for Ruud van Nistelrooy, the 24-year-old PSV Eindhoven and Netherlands national football team striker who had been due to join the club last year until the transfer was put on hold by injury. 29 April – Census of population in the United Kingdom.
May 1 May – An anti-capitalist demonstration in London, part of worldwide protests, turns violent. 4 May – The government relaxes its sanctions designed to tackle the foot and mouth crisis after more than two months. 11 May – House of Commons (Removal of Clergy Disqualification) Act 2001 removes disqualifications for clergy in standing for election as members of parliament and other elected bodies. 12 May – Liverpool win the FA Cup Final when two Michael Owen goals in the final minutes of the game give them a 2–1 win over Arsenal in the final at the Millennium Stadium. 13 May – The family of Mahmood Mattan, hanged in 1952 following his wrongful conviction for the murder of Lily Volpert, are awarded £1.4m in compensation by the Home Office, the first time the family of someone wrongfully hanged in the UK have received compensation. 15 May – Medication prices fall as a result of a court ruling which puts an end to the drug industry's price-fixing policies. 16 May Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott punches a protester who threw an egg at him in Rhyl. Jane Andrews is sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of murdering Thomas Cressman. Liverpool win the UEFA Cup – their first European trophy for 17 years – with a 5–4 win over Spanish side Deportivo Alavés. 23 May – The first C-17 Globemaster III to serve with the Royal Air Force arrives in the UK at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire 24 May – At Bristol Crown Court, Lee Ford is sentenced to five terms of life imprisonment after pleading guilty to the murders of his wife and four stepchildren at their home in Carnkie, near Redruth, Cornwall, in September 2000.
June 1 June – Official opening of Cardiff Bay Barrage. 7 June – General Election: Labour Party attains a second successive landslide election victory. Among the new entrants to parliament is 34-year-old future Conservative prime minister David Cameron, who retains the Witney seat in Oxfordshire for the Conservative Party. Amongst the retiring members is Edward Heath, the former Conservative prime minister, who at the age of eighty-four, was the oldest member of the last parliament and also its longest-serving continuous member having served since the 1950 election. This is the first election to have been held under the regulation of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Voter turnout at 59.4% is the lowest since the introduction of universal suffrage. 8 June – William Hague announces his resignation as Conservative Party leader after four years. 17 June – Cardinal Winning, head of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland, dies of a heart attack aged seventy-six in Glasgow. 22 June – Home Secretary David Blunkett announces that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, convicted at the age of eleven of murdering toddler James Bulger on Merseyside, are to be released on life licence later this year after the Parole board recommended their release after eight years in custody. 25 June – A race riot breaks out in Burnley, with more than 200 White and Asian youths being involved in brawling, vandalism and arson. 29 June – The government announces plans to build a £3,000,000 fountain in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales at Hyde Park, London.
July July – MG Rover launches a new range of MG-badged performance variants of its Rover family cars. 2 July – Barry George is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the television presenter Jill Dando, who was killed in Fulham, London, on 26 April 1999. George is acquitted at a retrial in 2008. 7 July – Race riots in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The riots begin after National Front members reportedly stab an Asian man outside a pub. 12 July – The British transfer record is broken for the third time in eight months when Manchester United pay Italian club Lazio £28.1million for Argentine midfielder Juan Sebastián Verón. 16 July – The Labour government suffers its first parliamentary defeat over the sacking of Gwyneth Dunwoody and Donald Anderson as chairs of select committees on transport and foreign affairs. 18 July – Philip John Smith is sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty to the murders of three women in Birmingham in November last year. 19 July – Politician and novelist Jeffrey Archer is sentenced to four years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice. 20 July – Rioting breaks out in Brixton, London, following the fatal shooting of Derek Bennett, a 29-year-old black man, by armed police in the area. 27 people are arrested and three police officers are injured. 29 July – A victim support group condemns a reported £11,000 payout by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority to the parents of murdered Sarah Payne as "derisory".
August 3 August – A car bomb explodes in Uxbridge Road, near Ealing Broadway railway station, injuring seven people. 4 August – Oxford United move into their new 12,500-seat Kassam Stadium near the city's Blackbird Leys estate. Work on the stadium had started in 1996 but halted the following year due to the club's financial problems. The stadium will initially have three stands but a fourth stand could be built in the future to take the capacity to 15,000. 7 August – The government takes an unprecedented step with the £27 million nationalisation of a private hospital near Harley Street in London. 10 August – Former Conservative Party MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine are arrested on suspicion of sexual assault. 11 August – Southampton F.C. move into their new 32,000-seat St Mary's Stadium. 16 August – Former royal butler Paul Burrell is charged with the theft of items belonging to the late Diana, Princess of Wales; the prosecution subsequently collapses. 28 August – Police officer Karl Bluestone murders his wife and two children at their home in Gravesend, Kent. 31 August – Neil and Christine Hamilton are cleared in connection with the sexual assault allegations.
September 3 September – In Belfast, Protestant loyalists begin a picket of Holy Cross, a Catholic primary school for girls. For the next 11 weeks, riot police escort the schoolchildren and their parents through hundreds of protesters, amid rioting and heightened violence. 5 September – Peter Bray completes the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a kayak. 7 September – One million children in over 3,000 schools participate in an experiment to discover if it is possible to create earthquakes by all jumping off chairs. 10 September Charles Ingram wins £1 million on the television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, but the prize is cancelled after he is accused of cheating. The Bank of Scotland and the Halifax merge to form HBOS plc. 11 September September 11 attacks: by al-Qaeda terrorists upon the United States. 67 UK nationals perish in the attacks, the largest loss of life from any nation other than the U.S. itself. One Canada Square, the UK's second tallest building, and the London Stock Exchange are evacuated following the attacks in the United States. Prime Minister Tony Blair cancels a speech he was due to give to the TUC, and pledges to "stand shoulder to shoulder" with the United States. 12 September – The funeral of Donald Campbell takes place at Coniston in Cumbria, 34 years after his death. 13 September