John Taylor is made a Life Peer as Baron Taylor of Warwick, the first black Conservative peer. 7 October – The Thiepval barracks bombing in Lisburn (Northern Ireland) injures many people, including a soldier who later dies from his injuries. 12 October – The Conservative government's majority has dwindled to a single seat following the defection of Peter Thurnham to the Liberal Democrats. 13 October Racing driver Damon Hill wins the Japanese Grand Prix thus, clinching the Drivers' World Championship. The Queen opens Durham's new Riverside Ground in Chester-le-Street, the first new purpose-built first-class county cricket ground in the UK for over 100 years. 16 October – The government announces plans to make possession of handguns illegal in the UK, following the Dunblane massacre. November 3 November – Barry Porter, Conservative MP for Wirral South, dies of cancer aged 57. 8 November – With the next general election, no more than six months away, Labour still look set for a return to power after eighteen years in opposition, but the Conservatives have cut their lead to seventeen points in the latest MORI opinion poll – one of the narrowest gaps seen between the two leading parties in any opinion poll over the last three years. 13 November – The Stone of Scone is taken away from King Edward's Chair in Westminster Abbey, its location since 1296, and returned to Scotland. 18 November – Channel Tunnel fire – The Channel Tunnel is closed when a truck on a transporter wagon catches fire, disrupting Eurotunnel Shuttle and Eurostar services. 24 November – BBC One airs The Simpsons for the first time with There's No Disgrace Like Home being the first episode. 30 November – The Stone of Scone is installed in Edinburgh Castle 700 years after it was removed from Scotland by King Edward I of England. December 7 December – Sir John Gorst, 68-year-old Conservative MP for Hendon North in London, resigns the party whip, leaving the Conservative Party without a majority in the House of Commons. 10 December James Mirrlees wins the Nobel Prize in Economics jointly with William Vickrey "for their fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information". Harold Kroto wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley "for their discovery of fullerenes". 18 December – Unemployment has fallen below 2,000,000 for the first time in almost six years, four