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2003 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

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News by month

Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun Jul - Aug - Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec

Sport and Music

British and Irish current events

2003 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

2003 in British television

2003 in British music

2003 in British radio

Events from the year 2003 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - Tony Blair, Labour Party

Events

• 25 January - Central Line underground train crashes into the tunnel wall at Chancery Lane tube station in London, injuring 34 people.
• 29 January - Sally Clark, a 38-year-old former solicitor from Cheshire, is released from prison after the Court of Appeal clears her of murdering her two sons, who are believed to have died of Cot Death.^[1]
• 30 January - Richard Colvin Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber", sentenced to life imprisonment by a United States court.^[2]
• 1 February - In Northern Ireland, the Protestant Ulster Defence Association Belfast leader John Gregg is killed by a loyalist faction.
• 15 February - In London, more than 2 million people demonstrate against the Iraq War, the largest demonstration in British history.^[3]
• 17 February - The London congestion charge, a fee that is levied on motorists travelling within designated parts of London, came into operation.
• 27 February
  • 122 Labour MPs vote against the government in a debate over the Iraq War.^[3]
  • Rowan Williams enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 12 March - Iraq disarmament crisis: British prime minister Tony Blair proposes an amendment to the possible 18th U.N. resolution, which would call for Iraq to meet certain benchmarks to prove that it was disarming. The amendment is immediately rejected by France, who promises to veto any new resolution.
• 20 March - 2003 Iraq war: Land troops from United Kingdom join troops from the United States, Australia and Poland in the invasion of Iraq.
• 22 March - Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from Royal Navy submarines take part in a massive air and missile strike on military targets in Baghdad.
• 6 April - British forces capture the city of Basra during the Iraq war.
• 29 April - Tony Blair holds a one day summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin mocks Britain's and America's failure to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.^[3]
• 3 May
  • Scottish parliamentary election, 2003: the Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition led by Jack McConnell win a majority of the seats and remain in power. The Scottish Green Party and the Scottish Socialist Party significantly increase their representation.
  • Welsh Assembly election, 2003: the Labour Party remain in power.
  • The BBC announces that the hugely popular character Den Watts will return to its soap opera EastEnders later this year, 14 years after he was supposedly killed off.
• 15 May - The government suspends all flights to and from Kenya after warnings of an imminent al-Qaeda attack.^[3]
• 28 May - The UEFA Champions League Final at Old Trafford (home to Manchester United) with Juventus beating AC Milan in a penalty shootout following a goalless draw.
• 29 May - Andrew Gilligan broadcasts a report on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme stating that the government claimed in its dossier that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes knowing the claim to be dubious. A political storm ensues. Gilligan's source is David Kelly, a weapons expert.
• 10 June - Soham Murders suspect Ian Huntley returns to Woodhill Prison after being treated for the effects of an overdose yesterday.
• 15 June - The News of the World publishes a newspaper article in which Ian Huntley is photographed in his cell at Woodhill Prison. An undercover reporter had got a job in the prison and was being employed as Huntley's guard.
• 24 June
  • President Vladimir Putin becomes the first Russian head of state to make a state visit to the Britain since Tsar Alexander II in 1874.^[4]
  • Six members of the Royal Military Police killed and eight other soldiers injured in Iraq.^[3]
• 26 June - The latest MORI poll puts Labour and the Tories on even terms at 35%. [1]
• 15 July - David Kelly appears before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee to answer questions over the information he had given to Andrew Gilligan.
• 18 July - David Kelly is found dead near his home in Oxfordshire — police suspect that he committed suicide.^[5]
• 20 July - The BBC confirms that Dr David Kelly, found dead from suspected suicide two days ago, was the main source for a controversial report that sparked a deep rift with the government.^[6]
• 1 August - The Hutton Inquiry begins, with judge Lord Hutton opening an inquiry into the recent deaths of weapons expert Dr David Kelly.^[7]
• 3 August - Police use the taser for the first time.^[4]
• 10 August - Brogdale enters the UK Weather Records for the highest ever recorded temperature of 38.5°C. The summer of 2003 has so far been Britain's hottest summer for 13 years.^[8]
• 4 September - The Bullring Shopping Centre in Birmingham is officially opened by Sir Albert Bore.
• 18 September - Brent East by-election: Sarah Teather of the Liberal Democrats becomes MP for Brent East after 29 years of Labour control.
• 29 September - The comeback of Den Watts (played by Leslie Grantham) in EastEnders is screened, 14 years after the character was supposedly killed off, and just over four months after the BBC confirmed that Grantham would be returning to the series.^[9]
• 24 October - Supersonic aircraft Concorde makes its final commercial flights after 27 years.^[10]
• 29 October - Iain Duncan-Smith resigns after just over two years as leader of the Conservative Party.^[11]
• 3 November - Channel 4's soap opera Brookside finishes after 21 years on air.
• 8 November - Sophie, Countess of Wessex gives birth to her and Prince Edward's first child, a baby girl.^[12]
• 18 November
  • United States President George W. Bush makes a state visit to London in the midst of massive protests.^[13]
  • Passage of the Local Government Act 2003 including the repeal in England, Northern Ireland and Wales of controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 which prevented local authorities from "promoting homosexuality". Section 28 had already been repealed in Scotland in 2000.
• 20 November - Several bombs explode in Istanbul, Turkey at several British targets. The Turkish head office of HSBC and the British consulate are destroyed, and the British Consulate-General, Roger Short is killed.^[14]
• 22 November - England are rugby world champions after defeating Australia 20-17 after extra time.^[15]
• 24 November - The High Court in Glasgow imposes a minimum sentence of 27 years for Al Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
• 26 November - The final Concorde to fly touches down for the last time in Filton, Bristol where it was welcomed by the Duke of York
• 9 December - The M6 Toll motorway opens, giving the United Kingdom its first toll motorway and providing a northern by-pass for the congested section of the M6 motorway through the West Midlands conurbation. [2]
• 10 December
  • Clive Granger wins the Nobel Prize in Economics jointly with Robert F. Engle "for methods of analyzing economic time series with common trends (cointegration)".^[16]
  • Anthony J. Leggett wins the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov and Vitaly Ginzburg "for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids".^[17]
  • Peter Mansfield wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Paul Lauterbur "for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging".^[18]
  • The Court of Appeal overturns two murder convictions against 40-year-old Wiltshire woman Angela Cannings, who was wrongly convicted of murdering her two baby sons in April last year. Mrs Cannings, who has a surviving daughter, always maintained that her sons were both Cot Death victims.^[19]
• 12 December - Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones receives a knighthood from Charles, Prince of Wales.^[4]
• 16 December - The Government announces plans to build a new runway at Stansted Airport in Essex and a short-haul runway at Heathrow Airport sparking anger from environmental groups.
• 17 December
  • Ian Huntley is found guilty of the Soham Murders and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey. A High Court judge will later decide on the minimum number of the years that he will have to serve before being considered for parole. His ex-girlfriend Maxine Carr is found guilty of perverting the course of justice and receives a jail term of three-and-a-half years, but she will be freed on licence (under a new identity to protect her from reprisal attacks) in May 2004 as she has already served 16 months on remand.^[20]
  • Home Secretary David Blunkett orders an inquiry into how the police vetting system failed to prevent Ian Huntley from getting a job in a school, after it was revealed at the end of his murder trial that he had been suspected in the past of crimes including underage sex, rape, indecent assault and burglary.^[21]
• 26 December - A policeman dies and two others are injured after being shot by a man they were questioning about a suspicious BMW car in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
• 31 December - David Bieber, a 37-year-old former American marine, is arrested on suspicion of the Boxing Day police shootings in Leeds.

Publications

• Iain Banks' book Raw Spirit.
• Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels The Wee Free Men and Monstrous Regiment.
• J. K. Rowling's novel Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Births

• 8 November - Lady Louise Windsor, daughter of Earl and Countess of Wessex

Deaths

• 5 January - Roy Jenkins, politician (born 1920)
• 8 January - Ron Goodwin, composer (born 1925)
• 12 January - Maurice Gibb, musician and singer-songwriter (born 1949)
• 26 January - Hugh Trevor-Roper, historian (born 1914)
• 26 January - George Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie, politician (born 1931)
• 14 February - Dolly the Sheep, cloned sheep (born 1996)
• 27 February - John Lanchbery, composer (born 1923)
• 8 March - Adam Faith, actor and singer (born 1940)
• 22 March - Terry Lloyd, television journalist (born 1952)
• 11 April - Cecil Howard Green, geophysicist and businessman (born 1900)
• 14 May - Wendy Hiller, actress (born 1912)
• 10 June - Bernard Williams, philosopher (born 1929)
• 1 July - George Roper, comedian (born 1934)
• 10 July - Winston Graham, writer (born 1908)
• 10 July - Hartley Shawcross, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials (born 1902)
• 25 July - John Schlesinger, film director (born 1926)
• 27 July - Bob Hope, comedian (born 1902)
• 9 August - Ray Harford, footballer and football manager (born 1945)
• 9 August - Jimmy Davis, footballer (born 1982)
• 1 September - Terry Frost, artist (born 1915)
• 26 September - Robert Palmer, singer (born 1949)
• 5 October - Denis Quilley, actor (born 1927)
• 4 November - Richard Wollheim, philosopher (born 1923)
• 2 December - Alan Davidson (born 1924)
• 27 December - Alan Bates, actor (born 1934)
• 29 December - Dinsdale Landen, actor (cancer) (born 1932)
• 29 December - Bob Monkhouse, comedian and game show host (born 1928)

References

See also