Buckingham

John Bercow's election as Speaker probably ends the perception of him as a possible floor-crosser. Aidan Crawley, the Labour MP for Buckingham (1945-51), defected after his defeat by Frank Markham (previously the Labour MP for Chatham). Markham was beaten by Robert Maxwell, who died in odd circumstances off the Canary Islands in 1991. While Tory MP for Buckingham, John Percival Whitley died in a flying accident in Gibraltar in 1943 with the Polish leader, General Sikorski. Maxwell's Pergamon Press was based in Oxford, famous for (among other things) the Radcliffe Camera, named after the doctor and MP for Buckingham (1713-15). Even Maxwell did not get into as much trouble as another Buckingham MP, Edmund Hope Verney, who was expelled from the Commons in 1891 for procuring a young girl for immoral purposes.

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