Israel/Palestine

If Eric Illsley is kicked out of parliament, his name will be added to a list of shady and tragic characters

Only five serving MPs have been expelled from the house in the past 100 years after receiving a criminal conviction. Among them are some of the shadiest characters to have ever walked the corridors of power.

John Stonehouse, the Labour MP for Walsall South, was expelled in August 1976 after a parliamentary career that started with ambitions to be prime minister and ended with him faking his own death. In the early 1970s Stonehouse, who had previously held several ministerial posts, had severe business problems and fled to Australia on a dead constituent's passport via Miami where he left his clothes on a beach, faking his own suicide. The police caught up with him on Christmas Eve in 1975 and he was sent to Brixton prison, where he continued to serve as an MP. He eventually resigned in August, but not before he had resigned the Labour party whip, costing his party – which had up to then failed to expel him – its majority in the Commons.

Peter Baker, the Conservative MP for South Norfolk, was automatically expelled on 16 December 1954 when he was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment after forging signatures on letters purporting to guarantee debts when his companies ran into financial difficulties.

Horatio Bottomley, the independent MP for Hackney South, was a serial fraudster who was served with 66 bankruptcy writs during his life. After growing up in an orphanage in the East End of London, Bottomley had an extraordinary business career that alternated between grand-scale swindle and bankruptcy. He was also the first chairman of the Financial Times. In 1918 he founded the John Bull Victory Bond Club, a precursor to the premium bonds, and £900,000 in subscriptions duly rolled in. The club went bust and he was charged with fraud and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. He was subsequently expelled from parliament on 1 August 1922.