Praise for Austin Mitchell

Press, 14 August 1984, Page 12

Praise for Austin Mitchell

NZPA staff correspondent London Austin Mitchell has been rated one of Britain’s "top ten” backbench members of Parliament by the influential London newspaper, the “Financial Times.” The former New Zealand broadcaster is an effective member of Parliament, according to Peter Riddell, of' that newspaper. “Hardly any members can claim much legislation to their personal credit, but Mr Austin Mitchell, the Labour member of Parliament for Great Grimsby, has been at least the catalyst behind several changes,” Riddell wrote after the House of Commons rose for the summer.

“He always appears to be popping up with a motion here ... or private member’s bill there. “He can claim to have forced the Government to bring forward changes in the law on conveyancing and to have kept the possible televising of the Commons continually in front of members of Parliament.”

Riddell said the “two backbench masters now are Mr Enoch Powell and Mr Tony Benn.” Powell, “leaning forward with compulsive passion” awes “almost all his critics.”

Benn is “now the prophet, not the technocrat of the 19605, and the latest in a long line of radical challengers to the Establishment.”