Bizarre Death of Lawmaker Shakes Tories

The bizarre death of one of the Tories’ brightest young stars left Britain’s ruling party shaken once again by scandal Tuesday.

Member of Parliament Stephen Milligan, 45, an aide to defense procurement official Jonathan Aitken, was found dead in his West London home clad only in women’s stockings. A plastic trash bag was pulled over his head and cinched around his neck with an electric cord.

Police said the death could be an accident, suicide or murder--possibly during a sexual encounter--but that a preliminary autopsy was “inconclusive” and additional tests would be made.

Milligan’s body was found by an aide who became worried when he did not show up for work or call in on Monday. A former journalist with the Economist and the Sunday Times, Milligan, who was not married, entered Parliament after the last general election in 1992.

The mysterious death was another blow to Prime Minister John Major’s Conservative government, which had seemed on the verge of recovering from a series of sexual and financial scandals.

The Tories hold a majority in Milligan’s constituency, but the lawmaker’s death will force an off-year election in the spring to fill his seat and they are afraid they could lose it to the Liberal Democrats.

Recent revelations have exposed the unorthodox private lives of several Tory lawmakers--at the height of Major’s “back-to-basics” campaign touting a return to traditional family values. Party Chairman Sir Norman Fowler sought to minimize the political fallout, declaring, “A tragedy of this kind could take place in any organization, whether it’s political or nonpolitical.”