Since Labour’s election defeat, there has been a lot of chat about how Dan Jarvis could be the man to revive the party. The argument went that Jarvis, a former officer in the Paras who commanded troops in Afghanistan, was just what the party needed to make voters take a second look at it.
But in a piece in The Times today, he rules himself out of the contest on the grounds that he has to put his children first. He writes, ‘My eldest kids had a very tough time when they lost their mum and I don’t want them to lose their dad. I need some space for them, my wife and our youngest child right now, and I wouldn’t have it as leader.’
But Jarvis is clear about what Labour’s problems are. He points out that, ‘Put London to one side and more people have walked on the moon than the number of Labour MPs elected across the south west, southeast and east of England.’ He goes on to warn that Labour’s message wasn’t sufficiently aspirational and that the party didn’t talk about education enough, a very similar message to the one that Liz Kendall delivered in her interview with Andrew Neil. Jarvis also makes clear that he thinks that Labour overspent before 2007.
We now wait to see if Jarvis will throw his weight behind any of the other leadership candidates.
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