[11] The political scientist Bernard Crick, who was a contemporary of Stonehouse at university, recalls that his then nickname was 'Lord John', and that "his conversation was openly and restlessly about how best to get a parliamentary seat.

He was first elected as the Labour Co-operative Member of Parliament (MP) for Wednesbury in Staffordshire in a 1957 by-election, having contested Twickenham in 1950 and Burton in 1951.

Speaking to the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress, he encouraged Rhodesian blacks to stand up for their rights and said they had the support of the British Labour Party.

Stonehouse's last Parliamentary contribution before his disappearance was at Prime Minister's Questions on 14 November 1974,[14] a few days before leaving for Miami, Florida.

[17] In December 2010, it was revealed that Margaret Thatcher had agreed to cover up revelations that Stonehouse had been a Czechoslovak spy in 1980, as there was insufficient evidence to bring him to trial.

[18] Until the 2012 exposure of Ray Mawby, briefly a member of a Conservative government,[19] Stonehouse was the only Minister known to have been an agent for the former Eastern bloc.

Secret government documents, declassified in 2005, indicate that Stonehouse spent months rehearsing his new identity as 'Joseph Markham', the deceased husband of a constituent.

[20] Stonehouse maintained the pretence of normality until he faked his death on 20 November 1974, leaving a pile of clothes on a beach in Miami to make it appear that he had suffered a fatal misadventure while swimming.

In reality, Stonehouse was en route to Australia, some 9,000 miles (14,000 km) away, hoping to set up a new life with his mistress and secretary, Sheila Buckley.

[20] Using false identities, Stonehouse set about transferring large sums of money between banks as a further means of covering his tracks.

The Australian police initially suspected him of being Lord Lucan, who had disappeared a fortnight before Stonehouse, following the murder of his children's nanny.

On his arrest, the police instructed Stonehouse to pull down his trousers in an attempt to establish whether or not he was Lucan, who had a 6-inch (150 mm) scar on the inside of his right thigh.

[22] He applied for the position of Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds while still in Australia (one of the ways for an MP to resign), but decided not to sign the papers.

Stonehouse continued to serve as an MP; on 20 October 1975 he made a personal statement to the House of Commons, stating his reasons for his disappearance, his first Parliamentary oration since his disappearance almost a year earlier:[24] The explanation for the extraordinary and bizarre conduct in the second half of last year is found in the progressions towards the complete mental breakdown which I suffered.

The parallel personality was uncluttered by the awesome tensions and stresses suffered by the original man, and he felt, as an ordinary person, a tremendous relief in not carrying the load of anguish which had burdened the public figure.The collapse and destruction of the original man came about because his idealism in his political life had been utterly frustrated and finally destroyed by the pattern of events, beyond his control, which had finally overwhelmed him.Although unhappy with the situation, the Labour Party did not expel Stonehouse as their parliamentary majority was very narrow.

Stonehouse wrote three novels and made numerous television and radio appearances during the rest of his life, mostly in connection with discussing his disappearance.

After their divorce in 1978, Stonehouse married his mistress, Sheila Elizabeth Buckley (née Black),[34] in Hampshire on 31 January 1981, the marriage produced one child.

[36][page needed] Just under three weeks later, early on 14 April, he suffered a massive heart attack at his house at Dales Way in Totton, Hampshire, where he had moved six months earlier, having lived in London since his release from prison, his last address there having been at 20 Shirland Mews.