Austin Vernon Mitchell ONZM (19 September 1934 – 18 August 2021)[1][2] was a British academic, journalist and Labour Party politician who was the member of Parliament (MP) for Great Grimsby from a 1977 by-election to 2015.

While lecturing in politics from 1963 to 1967 at the University of Canterbury, Mitchell wrote a popular book about New Zealand, The Half Gallon Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise (1972).

These drastic changes provided ample subject matter for social analysis and 30 years later Mitchell wrote Pavlova Paradise Revisited (2002) as well as a video series accessible on NZ on Screen, after another New Zealand expedition.

[8] In 1963 Phil Connolly, the retiring MP for Dunedin Central, shoulder-tapped Mitchell to put his name forward to replace him in the seat.

[16] He was elected to the UK Parliament at a by-election in 1977, following the death of the previous MP, the Foreign Secretary Tony Crosland.

In 1986, following the John Stalker inquiry to alleged Royal Ulster Constabulary "shoot-to-kill" policies in Northern Ireland, a policeman Chief Inspector Brian Woollard claimed he had been removed from the inquiry by a group of Freemasons; Mitchell backed Woollard and argued that there should be a national register of all people in authority who are Freemasons.

[22] Beginning in the 1990s, Mitchell helped to highlight Jersey's role in facilitating tax evasion, drug trafficking, and money laundering, as well as the island's secretive partnership with accountancy firms Price Waterhouse and Ernst & Young to enact LLP legislation to minimise accountants' liabilities.

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.

[35] He was 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.

[45] Austin married Dorothea Patricia Jackson in 1959: they had two daughters, Susan Ngaio and Nicola Rewa, but divorced in 1966.

[46] In July 2013, Mitchell underwent heart surgery at King's College Hospital, London, to repair a leaking valve.

[48][49] Speaking after his death, former Labour leader Tony Blair said, "Austin was a larger than life figure – immense fun, a jovial manner often concealing an acute mind, a challenging colleague at times for sure but always warm-hearted and decent, and above all totally committed to Grimsby!

"[50] Mitchell was portrayed in the 2009 film The Damned United, in a scene recreating his interview with Brian Clough and Don Revie.