Austin Mitchell

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Austin Vernon Mitchell (born 19 September 1934^{[citation needed]}) is the Labour Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby in England.

Mitchell was educated at Bingley Grammar School, the University of Manchester and Nuffield College, Oxford. He is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group. He is a Eurosceptic^{[citation needed]} and opposes the Common Fisheries Policy.

While lecturing in sociology 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. Thirty years later, in 2002 he wrote Pavlova Paradise Revisited, after another New Zealand expedition. In the 1960's and 70's, New Zealand was a socialist laboratory. In the 80's and 90's, it was transformed into an open market economy. These drastic changes provided ample subject matter for social analysis.

He became an MP with a by-election in 1977, after the death of the previous MP, Tony Crosland, at the time identifying himself as a Gaitskellite. Immediately before being elected he was a presenter of Yorkshire Television's regional news programme Calendar.

Mitchell is widely credited with bringing television cameras to the Houses of Parliament. 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.

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'.^[1] 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. ^[2]

Austin lives with his second wife, the journalist and author Linda McDougall.