4 January – In response to yesterday's crash, National Express withdraw all 12 of their Neoplan Skylinerdouble-decker coaches as a precaution.[3]
5 January
The England cricket team loses the fifth Ashes test in Sydney, Australia by 10 wickets, resulting in a 5–0 series whitewash, the first time this has occurred since the 1920–1921 Ashes Tour.[4]
7 January – Bristol Airport closes its runway due to concerns by various airlines (including easyJet and BA Connect) over the safety of landing in wet weather. This follows two days of nine airlines refusing to use the runway.[6]
10 January–28 January – John Reid faces mounting problems continuing from those of his predecessors including further prisoner escapes especially from open prisons and also absconding of those under Control Orders[8][9][10][11][12] and missing sex offenders.[13]
20 January – The MSC Napoli is deliberately grounded to prevent it sinking, leading to concern about environmental damage to Branscombebeach in Devon.[15]
February
3 February – The presence of the H5N1 virus in the avian flu outbreak at the Holton turkey plant in Suffolk is confirmed.[16]
15 March – Sally Clark, the woman who spent four years in prison before being released in 2003 when the High Court cleared her of killing her two baby sons (victims of cot death), dies at the age of 42.[1]
24 May – Jenny Bailey becomes the first transsexual mayor in the United Kingdom.
29 May – The Longbridge car factory in Birmingham re-opens, two years after the bankruptcy of MG Rover. The re-opened factory is a scaled down operation which will initially just produce the MG TF sports car, though there are plans by Chinese owners Nanjing Automobile to build other cars there in the future.
Rekha Kumari-Baker murders her two daughters in their sleep, stabbing them a total of 69 times. She is later sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum tariff of 33 years.[34]
Michael Mullen, 21, of Leeds, is sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of his two-year-old niece Casey Leigh Mullen, who died at her home in the city on 11 February this year. The trial judge recommends that Mullen should serve a minimum of 35 years before being considered for parole.
Demolition work begins on the historic HP Sauce factory in Birmingham, which closed in May with the loss of 125 jobs and the end of more than 100 years of manufacturing when the production facility was transferred to the Netherlands.
22 August – 11-year-old Rhys Jones is shot dead in Croxteth, Liverpool. His death is believed to have been a random shooting carried out by a local gang.
10 September – Television entertainer Michael Barrymore is told that he will not face charges in connection with the death of Stuart Lubbock, the man who was found dead in a swimming pool at his house more than six years ago.