1988 - British Steel Corporation, the former state-owned company, was privatised in 1988 under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but following mergers, the business is now owned by Corus, a Tata Steel company.
1989 - The Ford Motor Company announced its plans to buy Jaguar P.L.C. for a total of nearly $2.38 billion. Jaguar’s independence seemed doomed when the British Government, in keeping with its free-market leanings, declared it was willing to lift a state restriction that could be used to bar another company from owning more than 15% of Jaguar until the end of 1990.
1990 - In 1979, British industry lost 30 million workdays to strikes, a figure reduced to two million by 1989. Manufacturing productivity rose 3.5 % during the same period, and output per worker climbed each year, higher than that in Japan, Germany or the United States.
