GRIMSBY'S FORMER LONG-SERVING MP AUSTIN MITCHELL HAS DIED, AGED 86

                                             

Austin Mitchell - stalwart MP

FORMER Great Grimsby Labour MP Austin Mitchell died in Leeds General Infirmary this morning, aged 86.

Before becoming a parliamentarian, Bradford-born Mr Mitchell worked as an academic in New Zealand and as a broadcaster with spells on regional TV programmes.

During his time at the BBC, he recruited Peter Levy, current anchorman of Look North.

At ITV's Calendar, he famously interviewed, in 1974,  a frosty dialogue between two football managers with an intense mutual hostility  - Don Revie and Brian Clough, both also now long dead. 

It was particularly challenging for him because he knew next to nothing about football.

One of the first to pay tribute to him was Melanie Onn, who, in 2015, had succeeded him as Grimsby's MP.

She described him as a "larger-than-life character" who had secured pensions compensation for the last generation of Grimsby's fishermen.

However, he lost another political battle when his staunch opposition of the transfer of North East Lincolnshire Council stock of council housing to the  arms-length housing association, Shoreline (now part of LHP), proved unsuccessful.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was today one of many who expressed sadness at the loss of Mr Mitchell who had been Grimsby's MP for 38 years, but who had suffered from heart disease for may years.

"My thoughts are with his wife Linda and his children," he said.