MPs Give "Bionic MP" Craig Mackinlay Standing Ovation As He Returns To Parliament

MPs applauded Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay in an emotional moment as he returned to the House of Commons for the first time since losing his hands and feet to sepsis.

Macklinay, the MP for South Thanet, revealed on Tuesday that he fell ill in September and turned “a very strange blue” within about 30 minutes. He told the BBC he later woke from an induced coma to find his limbs had turned completely black, before they had to be amputated.

"When children come to Parliament's fantastic education centre I want them to be pulling their parents' jacket or skirts or their teacher and saying: 'I want to see the bionic MP today',” the MP said in his BBC interview. 

He returned to Parliament for the first time since his illness on Wednesday, and was welcomed by MPs who gave him a rare standing ovation. While clapping is not usually allowed in the Commons, the Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said this was an “exception”.