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Austin Mitchell

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Austin Mitchell
MP
Member of Parliament
for Great Grimsby
Incumbent
Assumed office
28 April 1977
Preceded byAnthony Crosland
Majority714 (2.2%)
Personal details
Born (1934-09-19) 19 September 1934 (age 90)
Bradford, West Yorkshire, England
Political partyLabour
SpouseLinda McDougall
Alma materUniversity of Manchester
Nuffield College, Oxford

Austin Vernon Mitchell (previously Austin Haddock; 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.

Education and early life

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]

Political career

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]

Mitchell is the President of the Debating Group.[8]

He opposes allowing same-sex couples the right to get married. [9]

Expenses claims

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.[10][11][12]

Twitter controversy

On 29 October 2012, Mitchell directed a tweet at Louise Mensch, saying 'A good wife doesn’t disagree with her master in public and a good little girl doesn’t lie about why she quit politics.' He also referred to Mensch as 'Menschkin.' The comments were widely condemned as being sexist, with Mensch demanding an apology from both Mitchell and Ed Miliband. Mitchell claimed he was being 'ironic'.[13]

Personal life

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).

References

  1. ^ Part 1 of full program video Broadcast on the documentary Yorkshire Gold, Yorkshire Television, ITV, 2004.
  2. ^ "The rise and effect of MP TV". BBC News. 2 May 2003. Retrieved 26 February 2010.
  3. ^ "MP changes name to Haddock". BBC News. 1 October 2002. Retrieved 26 February 2010.
  4. ^ "Austin Mitchell: Treatment of model family makes me ashamed to be a Labour MP". The Independent. London. 1 February 2007. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  5. ^ Grimsby Telegraph, Friday, 2 February 2007, pp. 1, 4–5
  6. ^ independent review of Tower Block of Commons
  7. ^ Sparrow, Andrew (17 February 2010). "I was a fool to appear in Tower Block of Commons, says MP Austin Mitchell". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 26 February 2010.
  8. ^ [1] Debating Group
  9. ^ http://www.c4em.org.uk/support-for-equal-marriage/
  10. ^ "MPs' expenses: Austin Mitchell repays £10,000". The Daily Telegraph. London. 26 January 2010. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  11. ^ "Veteran Labour MP repays £10,500". BBC News. 25 January 2010. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  12. ^ Bentley, Daniel (26 January 2010). "MP apologises for £10,000 expenses error". The Independent. London. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  13. ^ Quinn, Ben (30 October 2012). "Labour MP defends 'ironic' Louise Mensch tweet". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 October 2012.

News items

Video clips

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