| Austin Mitchell MP | |
|---|---|
| Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby |
|
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 28 April 1977 |
|
| Preceded by | Anthony Crosland |
| Majority | 714 (2.2%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 19 September 1934 Bradford, West Yorkshire, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouse(s) | Linda McDougall |
| Alma mater | University of Manchester Nuffield College, Oxford |
Austin Vernon Mitchell (born 19 September 1934) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Great Grimsby since a 1977 by-election.
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Born in Bradford, Mitchell was educated at Woodbottom Council School, Bingley Grammar School, the University of Manchester and Nuffield College, Oxford.
From 1959–63 he lectured in History at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. While lecturing in sociology, from 1963–67, at the University of Canterbury, Mitchell wrote a popular book about New Zealand, The Half Gallon Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise (1972). The book title became a phrase in the New Zealand English lexicon. In the 1960s and 70s, New Zealand had been a socialist laboratory. In the 80s and 90s, it was transformed into an open market economy. These drastic changes provided ample subject matter for social analysis, and thirty years later Mitchell wrote Pavlova Paradise Revisited (2002), after another New Zealand expedition. From 1967–69, Mitchell was an Official Fellow at Nuffield College.
He was a journalist at ITV company Yorkshire Television from 1969 to 1977, presenting their regional news show Calendar, although he spent a short period at the BBC in 1972. During his period at Yorkshire Television, he chaired, in a live studio program, the famous debate between Brian Clough and Don Revie on the day Clough had been sacked by Leeds United in 1974.[1]
He was elected to Parliament at a by-election in 1977, following the death of the previous MP, the Foreign Secretary Tony Crosland. At the time Mitchell identified himself as a Gaitskellite.
Mitchell supported the introduction of television cameras to the House of Commons, raising it for discussion in 1983.[2] The move opened the proceedings of the House to the wider public, who previously had only been able to follow via newspapers and, from 1978, radio.
In October 2002 he temporarily changed his name to Austin Haddock as haddock is a staple catch for his constituents that was suffering a decline and it was his wish to promote it.[3]
In 2007 Mitchell wrote a front-page article for The Independent newspaper in which he criticised the treatment of a family of asylum-seekers in his constituency. This article quoted him as saying that certain correspondents on the subject to the website of the local newspaper, the Grimsby Telegraph, were 'lumpen lunatics'.[4] The Grimsby Telegraph covered the response in which it stood by the MP but also reported that a number of readers had called for his resignation.[5]
He is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group – although this affiliation did not prevent him from nominating Gordon Brown (rather than John McDonnell) for the 2007 Labour Party leadership election. As a supporter of the Better Off Out campaign, Mitchell could be considered a Eurosceptic and he opposes the Common Fisheries Policy.
Mitchell is also a keen supporter of the Additional Member System, (the electoral system used in elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly), and called a Private Members' Debate on this issue on 1 December 2009.
During 2010 Mitchell participated in "Tower Block of Commons", a Channel 4 documentary where MPs live in tower blocks and in with ordinary residents in deprived areas. Mitchell, who insisted on living in his own flat with his wife instead of living with the local residents,[6] was criticised for his apparent lack of engagement in comparison to his Liberal Democrat and Conservative counterparts. He claimed the production company misled him.[7]
As part of an independent audit conducted after the United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009 in which expense claims between 2004 and 2008 for second homes were examined, Mitchell was discovered to have wrongly claimed £10,549 for mortgage repayments. He explained that this was as a result of an oversight in 2006; in January 2010 he issued an apology and repaid the funds.[8][9][10]
Austin lives with his second wife, the journalist and author Linda McDougal, whom he married in 1976 in Rochdale and with whom he has a son and daughter. He was previously married to Patricia, with whom he had two daughters.
Mitchell has taken photographs for and co-authored the book Parliament in Pictures: Inside the House of Commons and the House of Lords (ISBN 9780500019597).
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Anthony Crosland |
Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby 1977–present |
Incumbent |