1 January – Inmates riot at Ford Open Prison near Arundel, West Sussex. Windows are smashed and part of the prison is set on fire by prisoners, whose rioting was believed to have been sparked by staff attempts to breathalyse prisoners, amid allegations that alcohol had been smuggled into the prison.[1]
2 January – The Montenegrin Embassy in London writes to Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray, correcting factual inaccuracies and asking him to explain comments he made during First Minister's Questions in December 2010, about the country being involved in "war crimes", "ethnic cleansing" and "a United Nations peace-keeping mission"[2][3]
5 January – Music retailer HMV announces the closure of 60 stores following disappointing Christmas sales – a move which will see the firm lose 10% of its stores and will cost up to 900 people their jobs.[5]
9 January – An investigation by The Guardian reveals details of how Metropolitan police officer Mark Kennedy infiltrated dozens of protest groups in 22 countries using the pseudonym Mark Stone.[7]
13 January – 2011 Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election: Debbie Abrahams for Labour holds the seat with a 42.1% vote share and a majority of 3,558 against the Liberal Democrats. The by-election was triggered after previous MP Phil Woolas was found guilty of making false statements against an opponent during the original campaign.
1 February – ZH (Tanzania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department is decided in the Supreme Court, requiring the best interests of children to be taken into account in deportation cases.
5 February – David Cameron criticises "state multiculturism" in his first speech as prime minister on radicalisation and causes of terrorism.[19]
9 February
Former head teacher Jean Else has her Damehood revoked by the Queen, having previously being found guilty of misconduct. She is the first person to have the honour revoked.[20][21]
Former Labour MP Jim Devine is convicted of two counts of fraud for falsely claiming £8,385 in expenses. Devine is the first MP to stand trial in the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal and is later sentenced to 16 months imprisonment.[23]
18 March – Former British Airways software engineer Rajib Karim, of Newcastle upon Tyne is jailed for 30 years after he was earlier convicted of plotting to blow up a plane.[27]
3 April – The UK's last circus elephant is retired.[36]
4 April – As part of the government's package of welfare reforms, the one-and-a-half million people in the UK who are claiming Incapacity Benefit begin to receive letters asking them to attend a work capability assessment. The tests are part of government plans to reduce the number of long-term claimants and will take until 2014 to complete.[37]
5 April – Police investigating the murder of Sian O'Callaghan identify human remains found at a second site as those of Swindon woman Becky Godden-Edwards,[38] who was last seen alive in 2002 at the age of 20.
13 April – 53-year-old actor Brian Regan, most famous for his role as Terry Sullivan in the former Channel 4 TV soap Brookside, is charged – along with another man – with the murder of a man who was fatally shot in Aigburth, Merseyside, on 24 February.[43]
24 April – Senior Liberal Democrat minister Chris Huhne threatens legal action over "untruths" told by Conservative MP's opposed to the Alternative Vote System, 11 days before the referendum. He also warns that the dispute could damage the coalition government.[44]
27 April – The Office for National Statistics reveals that the economy had returned to growth during the first quarter of the year, growing by 0.5%.[45]
Claude Choules, the oldest living British born male and the last combat veteran of World War I, dies aged 110 in Australia, where he has lived since 1926. His death leaves 110-year-old Norfolk woman Florence Green, a Women's Royal Air Force waitress, as the conflict's last verified veteran of any status.[48]
St Paul's Cathedral completes its £40 million restoration project. The 15-year programme of cleaning and repair was among the largest restoration projects ever undertaken in the UK.[61]
23 June – Levi Bellfield, three years into a life sentence for the murder of two young women and the attempted murder of a third, is found guilty of murdering Amanda Dowler, the Surrey teenager who disappeared in March 2002 and whose remains were found in Hampshire six months later.[63]
24 June
Levi Bellfield receives an additional life sentence for the murder of Amanda Dowler. The jury fails to reach a verdict on the attempted abduction of another girl and the judge orders that the charge should remain on file.[64]
Household furnishings retailer Habitat goes into administration. 30 of its 33 outlets are affected by the administration, as the three central London stores are being sold to Home Retail Group in a £24.5 million deal which will safeguard a total of 150 jobs.[65]
30 June
Hundreds of thousands of public sector workers go on strike across the UK over planned pension changes.[66]
The cheque guarantee card scheme is withdrawn after operating for over 40 years. The scheme ensured some cheques were honoured even if the account holder did not have sufficient funds in their account.[67]
July
July – The British economy grew by 0.2% during the second quarter of the year, down from 0.5% in the first quarter.[68]
7 July – Following recent allegations that its journalists had hacked into the mobile phones of celebrities, politicians and high-profile crime victims over the last decade, it is announced that the News of the World will cease publication after its final edition on Sunday 10 July, having been in circulation for 168 years.[70]
18 July – Sean Hoare, the former News of the World reporter who made phone-hacking allegations against the newspaper which contributed to its recent demise, is found dead in Watford. His death is being treated as "unexplained but not suspicious" by police.[73]
23 July – The singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, 27, is found dead at her London home.[74]
29 July – Wolverhampton man Bilal Zaheer Ahmad, 23, is sentenced to 12 years in prison for making calls on an internet blog for MPs who backed the war in Iraq to be murdered.[75]
August
4 August – Downing Street launches a new e-petition website to encourage the public to prompt parliamentary debate on topics they feel are important. Several of the initial petitions concerned proposals for and against restoring the death penalty, last used in the UK in 1964.[76][77]
The Royal Navy appoints its first female warship commander. Lieutenant Commander Sarah West, 39, will take control of HMS Portland in May 2012.[80]
9 August – Further sporadic violence breaks out in several towns and cities around England, although London stays largely quiet overnight.[81] Police say that the fatal shooting of a 26-year-old man in Croydon, London, may be linked to the rioting in the area.[82]
10 August
Police from Scotland are sent to England to help combat riots and disorder.[83] There are three fatalities in Birmingham, all Muslim men who were run over in the Winson Green district of the city while protecting their neighbourhood from the rioting.[84]
12 August – The number of deaths in the recent wave of rioting across England reaches five when 68-year-old Richard Bowes died in hospital from injuries suffered when he was attacked while trying to put out flames during rioting in Ealing, London, four days ago.[86]
23 August – An e-petition calling for the British Government to release cabinet documents relating to the Hillsborough disaster collects 100,000 signatures – enough for MPs to consider a House of Commons debate on the matter. It is the first government e-petition to reach the target.[88]
31 August – Mobile internet use reaches 50% in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.[89]
September
September – Official figures show that UK unemployment rose by 80,000 to 2.51 million, the largest increase in nearly two years, in the three months to July.[90]
12 September
The Independent Commission on Banking recommends that British banks should separate their retail banking divisions from investment banking arms to safeguard against riskier banking activities.[91]
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act is passed, requiring general elections to take place at fixed five-year intervals, starting with 7 May 2015, removing the prerogative of Prime Ministers to select a date.
20 September – The UK's first commercial hydrogen filling station opens in Swindon.[94]
21 September – An energy firm which has been test drilling for controversial shale gas in Lancashire says it has found vast gas resources underground.[95]
1 October – A new record is set for the highest temperature recorded in October – at 29.9 °C (85.8 °F).[98]
3 October – The UK government pledges £50 million towards developing spin-off technologies from the super-strong material graphene.[99]
5 October – The world's largest solar bridge project gets underway in London.[100]
6 October – The Bank of England says it will inject a further £75 billion into the economy through quantitative easing (QE), but holds interest rates at 0.5%.[101]
9 October – Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney marries American heiress Nancy Shevell at a ceremony in London.[102]
12 October – A government ban on non-EU foreign spouses under the age of 21 coming to the UK is ruled unlawful by the UK Supreme Court.[104]
13 October – BP is given the go-ahead to proceed with a new £4.5 billion oil project west of the Shetland Islands.[105]
14 October – Liam Fox resigns as Defence Secretary after a week of allegations over his working relationship with friend and self-styled adviser Adam Werritty.[106]
17 October – Former Defence Secretary Liam Fox broke the ministerial code in his dealings with his friend Adam Werritty, an official report says.[107]
As police prepare to remove protestors from the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral, Giles Fraser resigns as its canon chancellor, saying he could not condone the use of violence against the demonstrators.[110][111]
28 October
Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak is convicted of the murder of landscape artist Joanna Yeates and is sentenced to life imprisonment.[112]
6 November – A public opinion poll carried out for the BBC Politics Show about Scotland's constitutional future indicates that devo-max is the most popular option with Scottish voters but 'no further constitutional change' is the most popular option with English voters. In Scotland, 33% backed devo-max, 28% supported Scottish independence and 29% backed 'no further constitutional change', while in England, 14% supported devo-max, 24% supported Scottish independence and 40% backed 'no further constitutional change'.[117]
9 November – Supreme Court decides Kernott v Jones giving Patricia Jones a 90% interest in a family home owned jointly with her former cohabitee but to which he had not contributed since their relationship ended, a leading case on unmarried couples' property rights in England and Wales.[118]
16 November – New official figures show that unemployment has risen to more than 2,600,000 – the highest level since 1994 – during September. Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, warns that the UK is now at a great risk from the Eurozone debt crisis. Youth unemployment has also passed the 1,000,000 mark for the first time since 1986.[119]
19 November – Four Metropolitan Police officers are stabbed while chasing a suspect in Kingsbury, north London. Two officers are seriously injured, and a 32-year-old suspect is arrested for attempted murder.[122]
22 November – Median survival periods for cancer in England and Wales have risen from 12 months to nearly six years since the 1970s, but with little change in some cancers, figures show.[123]
27 November
Iran's parliament vote by a large majority to downgrade diplomatic relations with the UK. The move comes after the UK Treasury imposed sanctions on Iranian banks.[124]
Opinion polls show that the Conservatives have established a lead of up to six points ahead of Labour, who had narrowly led most of the polls this year, since David Cameron's veto on the European Union treaty last week.[130]
Johann Lamont becomes leader of the Scottish Labour Party.
2011 was the second warmest year on record for the UK, according to the Met Office. Only 2006, with an average temperature of 9.73C (49.5F), was warmer than 2011's average temperature of 9.62C (49.3F).[132]
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