He worked as a journalist for The Economist, the BBC and then The Sunday Times.
He was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Eastleigh in Hampshire from 1992, and had been appointed a parliamentary private secretary to the Minister of State for Defence. He was also a parliamentary advisor re the then proposed privatization of British Rail.
Stephen Milligan was found dead in February 1994 dressed in stockings and suspender belt with a plastic bag around his head and an electric cord around his neck. A case of transvestic auto-erotic asphyxiation.
The resulting by-election saw the Conservatives lose the seat to the Liberal Democrats. Eastleigh had previously been regarded as a safe Conservative seat, but the Liberal Democrats have held it in subsequent elections. The event also contributed to the derailing of Prime Minister John Major’s “Back to Basics” policy.
- Stephen Milligan. The New Barons: Union Power in the 1970
s. London: Temple Smith. 1976.
- Stephen Bates. “Stephen Milligan: Brightest of the backbenchers”. The Guardian. Feb 08 1994. www.guardian.co.uk/politics/1994/feb/08/obituaries.stephenbates.
- Seán Mac Mathúna, John Heathcote. “Auto-erotic deaths linked to intrigues in British politics”. 1997. Flame. www.fantompowa.net/Flame/autoerotic_deaths_in_uk.htm.
- Keith Harris. “Stephen Milligan: Accident or murder & the unanswered questions” Newmedianews. 1999, 2005. www.newsmedianews.com/milligan.shtml.
- “Stephen Milligan”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Milligan.
Mac Mathúna, Heathcote and Harris suggest that Sado-masochistic sex was more typical of Milligan's boss, Jonathan Aitken, the then Minister of State for Defence, and that there was no indication that Milligan had previously been interested in such activities. There is also a suggestion of a political assassination. If that were so, then he does not belong on these pages, but their theory is also unproved.
A reader has written to me:
ReplyDelete"What the reports you cite fail to mention was at the time (news
spreads quickly between people of certain circles) was it was claimed that the man was not only hung, but that the wire electrical cord around his neck and the bare wires were in his mouth, poked into a piece of Orange Peel to act as a separator and ensure they stayed in place in his mouth without shorting together, then the plastic bag placed over that, then the rope, then somehow he managed to jump down turn on the switch on the wall socked (in UK sockets all have switches) in which the power plug leading to the wires in his mouth connected, and jump back up and retie himself in time to electrocute himself."
Personally I do have difficulties in imagining the killer dressing the corpse in stockings after the deed. Maybe Milligan was a closet transvestite anyway, and was also murdered.
There is also a suggestion of a link to a series of deaths at Marconi. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEC-Marconi_scientist_deaths_conspiracy_theory