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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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10 September 2007 |
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The Council are thinking of dropping the name North East Linconshire and are launching a consultation. As one of the areas MPs I have decided to launch an online consultation of my own.
I also want the views of people who live outside of the area so I have created two polls. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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17 May 2007 |
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Having put my application to be made PPS to the Fisheries Minister to all of the Leader (1.5 candidates) and Deputy (5.5 candidates), I now stand back as the only disinterested voter and watch the form. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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24 April 2007 |
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Inflation at 3.1% isn`t serious and will soon go down, but the frenzied knicker-twisting it`s produced is the first test of the MPC. Put interest rates up and it becomes a Doomsday Machine killing the economy to cure it. A $2 pound is ruinous for exports but will go up with higher rates reducing inflation by putting people out of work. Just like the good old days. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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24 April 2007 |
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Leadership elections have many functions: to legitimise a leader, give Party members a choice, and to change direction of march. Ours look calculated to avoid all of them. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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14 August 2006 |
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Its Tony’s reality. An alternative reality, open to all the faithful. A better, nicer, more benign and Christian reality than that inhabited by the punditteri, the Westminstrati, the Torytrots, the mediarati and other cynics including you and I. It’s Blairworld. Come right on in. In Blairworld New Kipling shoulders the White Man’s burden wherever President Bush tells him to, and preaches Boy Scout ethics to recalcitrant races, Mad Mullahs and Murderous Moslems, reinforcing them with bombs where necessary and keeping nuclear subs handy just in case the going gets rough. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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21 June 2006 |
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Whither Europe? A Sheffield blastfurnaceman shows how. That’s an article I wrote in my impetuous Euro-sceptic days but Whither Europe is now the major preoccupation of our ruling class, the Euro-elite. They’re worried by the fact that an organisation which has to keep moving on has stalled in a pause for reflection which could turn into paralysis. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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16 May 2006 |
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The saddest failure of European economics is in John production. Europe has produced neither a John Maynard Keynes to haul bankers down from their thrones nor a John Kenneth Galbraith to portray the crude nastiness of capitalism in their true light. Result? Bankers have dominated European economics and turned it into medicine not betterment, and certainly not entertainment. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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10 April 2006 |
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Fifty years since Crosland’s Future of Socialism. What have we gained? Not happiness. We were happier then. Not community. Not localism. Not equality |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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05 April 2006 |
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Damilola Taylor’s case sums up Britain.
Damilola died saying “I’m alright”. His father asked after the trial “What a mess. What kind of country is this?” |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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05 April 2006 |
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The Pebble Society, our top psephologists, took a vote on when Tony will go. Majority vote for 2007. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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16 March 2006 |
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By the time I was called in the debate on the Education Bill speeches were limited to a three minute gabble. So the House missed both my jokes and an argument which would have brought the Government to its knees. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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10 March 2006 |
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10 March 2006
Dear Ruth
As I’ve not yet had replies to my three letters on the Education Bill I’d like to sum up my concerns about it before the debate and vote on the fifteenth in the hope that you will have time to give some thought to answering the questions I have been asking. My central concern is “what is in it for Grimsby?” or, more broadly, North East Lincolnshire? It may offer a lot to pushy parents in London. I don’t, however, see much benefit for an area of educational disadvantage or for the young people in my constituency. It’s up to you to allay these doubts and the puff pastry published so far doesn’t do so. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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08 March 2006 |
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Apologies for the absence of blog. Nothing to do with a ban of silence imposed by the Whips. A back injury caused by a parachuting accident thirty years ago has laid me low. I get about on sticks but slowly, so most of my time is spent sitting like a retired major watching the world |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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28 February 2006 |
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Austin has written to the Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, about the forthcoming Education Bill. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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17 February 2006 |
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"What’s Gone Wrong" (WGW) has always been the most asked question in politics. We won a good election victory less than a year ago. Yet our WGW is that we look like a government at the end of its term facing an election we’re unlikely to win.
Takes leadership to do that. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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13 February 2006 |
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The Great Education Reform Debate is the Gay Gordons as we used to dance it in the St. Aiden’s Old Time Dance night (Sundays). Groups advance towards each other, bow and retreat. People twist under other people’s arms. They jig around. Then they move on to another partner. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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05 January 2006 |
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Speaking on behalf of Grimsby and the entire Mitchell for President Launch team, Austin Mitchell today officially welcomed the New Year. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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21 December 2005 |
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Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. I said at the start that this could be the year of the three leaders. Everything is still pointing that way. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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21 December 2005 |
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Blair won’t get his Education Bill through unless it’s gutted. He’s discovered the electoral benefits of bashing his own party and its prejudices but it’s a bit difficult to carry on that process in power with a majority of 66. |
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Opinions
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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21 December 2005 |
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Blair’s Presidency of the EU compares badly with Ethelred The Unready’s. Began with a magnificent speech. No follow through and total loss of interest. Until a last-minute attempt to negotiate the budget which he did by alienating his Eastern European mates with the threat of cuts in their money and ended only by negotiating against himself on the rebate and letting Merkel take all the credit as the honest broker. |
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