Some news from South Yorkshire as mayor Dan Jarvis has announced he won’t stand for re-election at the next mayoral election:
“I said from the beginning that being a Mayor and an MP wasn’t a long-term arrangement. And I meant it.”
Not only does this mean an opportunity to join Starmer’s front bench, it puts him in pole position for a leadership attempt in future…
Regardless of Jarvis’s political future, Guido’s pleased to see him announce an intention to quit. In February, he revealed Jarvis had quietly admitted he’d become a part-time MP after declaring he spent a full 120 hours on the metro mayor role. He pointed out Steve Rotheram and Tracey Brabin both quit parliament after being elected mayors so why should he be any different? His constituents will be delighted to regain a full-time MP…
Dan Jarvis combines his full-time MP job with his full-time role as Sheffield’s Metro Mayor. Guido always supposed one set of constituents must therefore be losing out by virtue of Jarvis’s Osborne-esque level job juggling; a recent entry in his register of member’s interests appears to have proved Guido’s suspicions correct:
The addition to the register – and revelation that he’s formally become a part-time MP based on the few hours left after dedicating a full 120 hours a month to his metro mayor role – only came about after an independent panel pushed a new £79,000 mayoral salary onto Jarvis. He’d previously been working for free and therefore not needed to register the role’s hours…
Steve Rotherham quit as an MP when he became Liverpool City Region mayor, and Labour MP Tracy Brabin has promised to resign her seat if elected West Yorkshire’s new metro mayor in May. Can anyone think of a reason why Jarvis shouldn’t do the honourable thing and step down from one of his roles to focus on doing the other properly?
When asked about Keir Starmer’s proposed second lockdown earlier on Politics Live, Labour’s Metro Mayor of Sheffield, Dan Jarvis, could only muster saying: “Any decision taken nationally needs to be informed by the reality on the ground.” So not a blanket national lockdown then…
He also went further in refusing to endorse Starmer’s proposal, only being able to bring himself to say Starmer was “right to float the idea”. Which is an interesting take on the Labour leader calling a whole press conference to announce it. It’s not just Tory mayors who are opposing Starmer’s pandemic politicking – his own party is too…
Sheffiled Labour Group are to put forward a motion openly criticising Sheffield Regional Mayor Dan Jarvis after his failure to sign a deal with local councils, unlocking cash and powers for the region. Senior Councillor Mazher Iqbal even suggested Jarvis should lose his job.
“If I was not doing my job, I would expect to be sacked. I would expect my boss to say, you have been in post for six months, this is what we agreed – what have you have achieved?”
“If I had not delivered I would expect them to say clear your desk on your way out. That would happen in any other job. That’s how the world works.”
Jarvis, who has been in the job for more than half a year, is the only one of the eight directly elected metro-mayors to have failed to reach an agreement with the local authorities in his region. Almost £17 million is sitting unclaimed as he has presided over negotiation deadlock…
Could his failure and local labour’s annoyance be anything to do with the fact that Jarvis is the only metro-Mayor who is double-jobbing? Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham both resigned as MPs when they became Mayors…
Thank you to @UKLabour members across South #Yorkshire for selecting me to be their mayoral candidate, with 58% of the vote. Thank you to @CllrBenCurran for a comradely contest.🌹
Read my statement ⬇ pic.twitter.com/J6g7ga6qCr
— Dan Jarvis (@DanJarvisMP) March 23, 2018
New Labour rules say MPs cannot hold another elected office. Will he quit parliament?
The Corbynistas on Labour’s NEC have royally stitched up Dan Jarvis, ruling that he cannot remain as an MP if he becomes South Yorkshire mayor. Jarvis threw his hat in for the role a couple of months back, tacitly supported by the regional Labour office. He has been lobbying to become mayor of the whole of Yorkshire, a non-existent position that Sajid Javid keeps ruling out. As one Labour source put it: “Dan is running for a role he doesn’t want in the hope of getting a different job that doesn’t exist, while aiming to keep his current job, which he now cannot do”.
Former Labour minister Richard Caborn also wanted the job – Guido hears he was kept off the shortlist last month after being grilled by the NEC over his dodgy lobbying past, including the time he was banned from parliament. The other candidate to make the final two is Ben Curran, a Corbyn-friendly councillor who says he will be a a “Mayor for the many”. If Action Dan wins the nomination on Friday, will he quit as an MP or withdraw from the mayoralty race?
