{"id":14346,"date":"2014-04-19T09:29:34","date_gmt":"2014-04-19T08:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=14346"},"modified":"2014-04-19T09:34:10","modified_gmt":"2014-04-19T08:34:10","slug":"the-nearest-i-came-to-becoming-a-member-of-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=14346","title":{"rendered":"The nearest I came to becoming a Member of Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was interested in the news<\/a> that Austin Mitchell<\/a> is to step down as a Member of Parliament at the General Election next year.<\/p>\n

Mitchell first became am MP in 1977 when he fought and won a bye-election in Grimsby occasioned by the premature death of the sitting Labour MP and Foreign Minister Anthony Crosland. He was selected as the Labour candidate for that election at a local Labour Party meeting in the Town Hall held on Friday 1 April 1977.<\/p>\n

Over 100 individuals applied to be the Labour candidate and six were shortlisted for the actual selection meeting. Mitchell was a local television presenter at the time and very well known and liked in the area. He easily won the selection.<\/p>\n

However, I was one of the six on the short list, having previously fought the two General Elections of 1974 as a Labour candidate and at the time of the Grimsby selection serving as a Political Adviser to a Member of the Labour Cabinet. <\/p>\n

I came second to Mitchell, although many were kind enough to suggest that mine was the best speech of the evening. After the decision, I made some remarks on behalf of the five unsuccessful individuals and said: “I wish you a famous victory”.<\/p>\n

Mitchell won the bye-election for the marginal seat and has been the local MP ever since. I was not quite 29 years old at the time, subsequently my life went in a different direction, and in the end I never entered Parliament. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"