Political Career
Stonehouse was first elected as Labour Co-operative Member of Parliament (MP) for Wednesbury in a 1957 by-election, having contested Twickenham in 1950 and Burton in 1951.
He served as a junior minister of aviation. At the ministry, he was involved in BOAC's order of Boeing 707 aircraft from the USA, against his own recommendation that they should buy a British aircraft, the Super VC10. This led to his making accusations against colleagues about the reasons for the decision. Then in the Colonial Office, Stonehouse's rise continued, and in 1967 he became Minister for Technology and as Postmaster General under Wilson until the post was abolished by the Post Office Act 1969.
As Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in 1970, he oversaw the controversial jamming of the offshore radio station Radio North Sea International. When Labour was defeated in the 1970 General Election, he was not appointed to the Shadow Cabinet.
When the Wednesbury constituency was abolished in 1974, he stood for and was elected to the nearby Walsall North constituency. Appointed to the new government, Stonehouse oversaw the introduction of first and second class stamps.
In 1969 Stonehouse was subjected to the assertion that he was a Czech secret service agent. He successfully defended himself, but the allegation was substantiated in the official history of MI5, The Defence of the Realm by Cambridge historian Christopher Andrew. In December 2010 it was revealed that then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had agreed in 1980 to cover up revelations that Stonehouse had been a Czech spy since the 1960s as there was insufficient evidence to bring him to trial. Until Ray Mawby, briefly a member of a Conservative government, was exposed in June 2012, Stonehouse was the only minister known to have been an agent for the former Eastern bloc.
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