Stephen Milligan

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Stephen Milligan (May 12, 1948 – February 7, 1994) was a British politician and journalist.

Educated at Bradfield College, he went on to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he ascended to the presidency of the Oxford Union.

As a journalist he had worked for The Economist and the BBC, but left the trade in 1990 when he was selected as Conservative Party candidate for Eastleigh. He became its member of Parliament at the 1992 election.

The discovery of his corpse in what was an unequivocal case of auto-erotic asphyxiation, combined with self-bondage and cross-dressing, led to a greater public awareness of auto-erotic asphyxiation and self-bondage and their risks. A bizarre detail of his death, which was the subject of much comment and speculation at the time, was that he was found to have had an orange segment in his mouth at the time of his death.

At the time of his death he was engaged to Julie Kirkbride, now Conservative MP for Bromsgrove

Milligan's death significantly contributed to derailing John Major's "Back to Basics" policy initiative. Most commentators reflected that the circumstances of the MP's demise were a personal tragedy that overshadowed his achievements in life and his promising political career.

His death triggered a by-election at a time which was highly volatile for the Conservative Party and saw the election of Liberal Democrat David Chidgey.

A few days after his death, the story resurfaced when an Eastleigh-based local newspaper reporter released a transcript of a tape recorded telephone conversation with the MP in which he spoke at length about his private personal plans and political aspirations.