Has anyone heard of John Stonehouse - MP in 70s? I had not and omGEE it's juicy.
This story honestly has everything - espionage, affairs, a fake death, mistaken identity, & even a cameo from a notorious serial killer.
Grab a cup of tea. Gonna have to make this a thread

Seems like Stonehouse was a mega brainy kid (IQ of 140 apparently - is that good?). He was first elected as an MP for Labour in 1957 and quickly rose up through the party.

However in 1969 he was accused of spying for Czechoslovakia. He was investigated by MI5 and successfully defended himself, but it halted him being appointed a position in the shadow cabinet under Harold Wilson.

I think this basically sent him into a spiral because he got himself into a load of debt, setting up unsuccessful companies, borrowing more money and eventually owing more than £800k across 24 bank accounts.

He was also (depressingly predictably) having an affair with his secretary, despite being married for over 25 years at this point. Sheila Buckley lived with him in London while his wife lived in their countryside home.

Anyway it's obviously all too much and he decides the most logical thing to do now is to fake his own death. lol.

He and Buckley meticulously plan, which includes him visiting two recent widows in his constituency on the pretence of consoling them while actually stealing information to forge documents in the names of their late husbands. Cool cool cool.

In November 1974 (after he's just been re-elected) he plans a business trip to Miami and swims out from a beach famed for dangerous currents. He swims round to the next bay, disguises himself by CHANGING HIS HAIR PARTING and flees to Hawaii on a fake passport.

There's a 48 hour manhunt for him later that day and he's declared missing, presumed dead. His wife is distraught (obvs). It's HUGE news. An MP has died! There was a minute silence in the Commons.

Meanwhile Stonehouse relaxes on a beach in Hawaii and eventually makes his way to Australia. Job done.

But! In an unfortunate twist (for Stonehouse), there's a known English fugitive in Australia who has disappeared after the murder of his child's nanny. So banks are on alert for anyone using a fake identity. And Stonehouse fits the description perfectly.

After watching him for a while, Australian police are convinced Stonehouse is this other murderer. They arrest him and tell him they know he's faking his identity etc. So he thinks the game is up and admits his real name. I imagine everyone was very confused.

News breaks that he's alive and everyone's caught completely off guard. Just imagine. Fleet Street scrambles to Australia. The News of The World even pay both Buckley and Mrs Stonehouse to go to Australia to confront him.

So he's back from the dead. He's eventually sent back to the UK but get this! He refuses to resign as an MP.

There's no provision in law that could force him to resign. So despite his prime minister and party begging him to go, he won't budge.

He's shunned by his colleagues and boo'd at party conferences. So instead he eventually switches parties to the English National Party. This reduced James Callaghan's new administration's majority to one.

Ahead of Stonehouse's court case for fraud, identity theft, fake life insurance etc he decided to sack his defence lawyer and defend himself. It was a shambles and lasted for 68 days, then the longest fraud trial in history.

Obviously he's found guilty. Seven years in Wormwood Scrubs. Only at this point does he agree to resign as an MP.

In the by-election the Tories won, shocking commentators. It means Callaghan's lost his majority and within months his government faced a vote of no confidence.

This is my favourite bit. In prison he gets really into chess, enters the Wormwood Scrubs chess league but lost in the final to IAN ACTUAL BRADY the Moors Murderer.

When he leaves prison his wife leaves him (shocker) and he marries Buckley. He died in 1988 aged 62.

One last thing to mention though. When the Czech Secret Service released their Soviet-era files in 2010 it turns out that Stonehouse WAS in fact acting as a spy, providing information about policies and technology.

Apparently he's the only British politician known to have acted as a foreign agent while serving as minister.

ALL CREDIT for this story and many other fascinating resignations goes to this incredibly interesting book by @theo_barclay I encourage you all to read it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fighters-Quitters-Great-Political-Resignations-ebook/dp/B07M95MXZB