Ian Austin (politician) - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

Austin was selected as the Labour candidate for Dudley North following the retirement of Ross Cranston, and was elected at the 2005 general election with a majority of 5,432.

Austin was reprimanded by the Speaker of the House of Commons for heckling during Prime Minister's Questions on 18 October 2006, and he was subsequently described by David Cameron as one of Gordon Brown's "boot boys". The following week he was rebuked again by the Speaker for comments made towards the Conservative benches.

Following Gordon Brown becoming prime minister on 27 June 2007, Austin was tipped for a post in Brown's inner circle. The following day he was appointed a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Gordon Brown with a special provision to attend cabinet. He was moved to a new position in the 2008 reshuffle, becoming an Assistant Whip for the Government. In the June 2009 reshuflle he entered Government as a minister for the first time, becoming Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government and Minister for the West Midlands.

He narrowly gained re-election at the general election on 6 May 2010, ahead of Conservative Party candidate Graeme Brown. He was the only one of the Dudley borough's four Labour MPs to retain his seat. Austin nominated Ed Balls, who came third, for the Labour leadership election of 2010.

On the 1st of June 2012, he apologised after claiming that a Palestinian human rights group had denied The Holocaust happened. Members of Friend of Al-Aqsa made reference to the fact that Mr Austin had written about the group in an aticle written on the Labour Uncut webist last year.