‘It’s time to spell out economic benefits of devolution’
“IT’S NEVER going to be quite how it was in Helmand in 2007, and that’s a good thing by the way,” says Dan Jarvis.
He has taken on a job many see as impossible – uniting Yorkshire’s 20 councils under one banner to create a powerhouse region with powers and money wrested from sceptical Ministers in Westminster.
But it pales in comparison to his struggles before politics, which the Sheffield City Region mayor entered in tragic circumstances.
Following the death of his first wife Caroline from bowel cancer at the age of 43 in 2010, the then-single father-of-two quit the Army after a distinguished career as a paratrooper serving on the brutal front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan, before fighting and winning the 2011 Barnsley Central by-election for Labour.
This year, he felt he had a “duty” to step forward for the Sheffield job to help Yorkshire take advantage of an “amazing” devolution opportunity.
Nailing his colours firmly to the mast of a One Yorkshire deal, he appears to have taken on a daunting task.
But Mr Jarvis says he has drawn “strength and experience” from a life that has given him “the perfect apprenticeship for difficult things”.
He tells “I’ve not had an easy time of it over the past 10 years or so.
“Life in Afghanistan was unbearably tough and that gives you a sense of perspective, in that whatever you do in this job, whatever people say, it’s never going to be quite how it was in Helmand in 2007, and that’s a good thing by the way.
“The process of bereavement, it’s terribly hard, terribly hard.
“I just think that you go through those things and it kind of gives you a perspective, it gives you an experience, and it gives you a kind of sense of understanding that life can be difficult but you’ve just got to keep going, be clear about what you want to achieve and get on with it and work constructively with people to make it happen.
“That has been my life approach.”
Mr Jarvis rejects suggestions that he took on the task in Sheffield to follow Labour “moderates” like Andy Burnham, out of Westminster when it became clear that left-leaning Jeremy Corbyn was unassailable as leader, pointing out he is still an MP.
Instead, he insists his “whole life has been underpinned by public service”.
Mr Jarvis says: “I knew the Army wouldn’t be easy and it wasn’t, it was very hard, but I believed in it.
“A set of circumstances meant that I had to leave and I believe in this, I believe in the value of public service.
“It’s tough, but it’s incredibly rewarding – I walked through Sheffield the other day and people were high-fiving me, because they were pleased for me, and that’s great.”
Mr Jarvis remarried, to Rachel in 2013, and now counts himself “incredibly lucky” to have a “wonderful” and “incredibly supportive” family.
“But this ( job) is tough, there’s a pressure on me, there’s a responsibility to deliver, it’s a very difficult complicated situation that we have here with devolution at the moment.
“I might not be able to, but I’m going to give it my best shot.”
Once touted as a future Labour leader, Mr Jarvis still sees the big picture, warning that his party has “neglected” working-class voters.
“We need to make sure that we are of them, with them, that we understand many of the concerns that frankly were represented during the Brexit debate,” he says.
Mr Jarvis says Mr Corbyn’s much-maligned responses to the chemical attacks in Salisbury and Syria, in which he was reluctant to blame Russia and Bashar Assad’s regime respectively, did not come up on the doorstep in this month’s disappointing local elections for Labour.
But in what may be seen as a veiled criticism, Mr Jarvis warns that voters expect Labour to “have a foreign policy that is cognizant of the risks and the threats that we as a country face”.
It will always be incumbent on Labour to have a view of the world and its challenges “in line with where the public are.”
If anyone knows about challenges, it’s Mr Jarvis. SUPPORTERS OF Yorkshirewide attempts to win powers and money from Westminster must acknowledge the critics and produce an economic argument for devolution, the region’s first metro-mayor has said.
Dan Jarvis stressed he is “personally convinced” of the economic case for a One Yorkshire deal with a mayor for the whole region of 5.3m people, but there is now “an important piece of work to do” in defining the benefits.
The Sheffield City Region mayor was responding to the likes of Lord Jim O’Neill, an architect of the Northern Powerhouse, who told One Yorkshire backers to replace “chest-beating slogans” about the region’s brand with sound economic argument. Hitting back, Mr Jarvis told
“I would just wryly say that in this most important debate about the future of Yorkshire – there are commentators and there are practitioners, and I’m a practitioner.
“I think I’m the only person actually who’s got two elected mandates and I could not have been clearer about the basis of my candidacy on which I put myself forward under unusual, exceptional circumstances.
“I feel I have an actual democratic mandate to deliver upon my manifesto which is to move us towards a wider Yorkshire deal.”
But the Labour MP acknowledged Lord O’Neill’s call for an economic case “has real value”.
“While I’m personally convinced of the economic case, there’s a wider sort of social case as to why it’s in our interest to draw together Yorkshire, I do think actually he’s got a point that there is a piece of work that we need to do in defining the economic benefits,” Mr Jarvis said.