“Investing the time is what really makes the difference” – Dan Jarvis and his doorstep marathon

Dan Jarvis is a relative newcomer to Parliament. In fact, he’s been an MP for less than four years, after being elected Barnsley Central’s MP in a by-election in 2011. He was the first member of the Armed Forces to resign a commission to fight a by-election since the Second World War.

Jarvis was the first Labour candidate for his constituency not to have been born in Yorkshire. Despite this, and off the back of substantial campaigning, Nottingham-born Jarvis sailed through the by-election with a majority of 60%.

Only four years into the job and he’s risen quickly through the party ranks. Within seven months of becoming an MP Ed Miliband made him Shadow Arts and Culture Minister, before he was moved to be Shadow Justice team in the 2013 reshuffle.

In an age where the term “career politician” isn’t uncommon, Jarvis’ route into politics is different from many of his political peers. Prior to his election as an MP, Jarvis served in the army for fifteen years. This meant that although he joined the Labour party when he was 18, he couldn’t show his political colours until he left the army in 2011.

These aren’t the only things that make Jarvis interesting.

We meet in his parliamentary office, where his shelves are lined with books about Barnsley and the armed forces, bringing together his past and his present. A copy of “Why Vote Labour” (a collection of essays he edited) and House magazine (featuring him on the cover) sit on his shelves. He drinks his tea from a mug, which reads ‘Votes for Women’ and he’s sure to mention in the course of our interview  “we need more women in Parliament”. Another mug sports the logo of the fire brigades union.

With the general election only 4 months away, and polls indicating that it’s on a knife-edge, he’s quick to get straight to business, explaining, “if we’re going to win this election, it is going to be house by house, street by street, town by town, and that was the reason for getting out there and doing that kind of work.”

This isn’t an unusual statement to hear coming out the mouth of a Labour MP, especially so close to an election. But Jarvis has been practicing what he preaches. He’s spent nine days, travelling more than 900 miles to campaign in 27 seats – from Plymouth to Redcar, wearing two giant holes into the bottom of his new shoes in the process.

He’s clear about why he undertook this immense task. With a refreshingly sober tone, he explains that there is no scope for complacency – not even in Labour-held seats.  He says this about convincing the electorate that Labour are the right party to run the country:

“I think it’s incredibly important that we demonstrate to the public that we’re not remotely complacent, and we won’t take anything for granted, in a way that perhaps, going back over some generations, frankly there has been a degree of complacency in some parts of the country, and some people relied on the fact that they’ve sat on pretty comfy majorities.  I think those days are long gone.”  

When I ask him if there’s one moment in particular that stands out from this whirlwind tour, it doesn’t take him long to decide. He tells me about meeting Michael, a gas fitter whose door he knocked on in a freezing cold night in Morecambe.

Michael, Jarvis said, is someone who has traditionally supported Labour, but was minded to vote Ukip. With Labour at serious risk of losing votes to Ukip, particularly in northern seats, this is one of the kinds of people the party will be trying to appeal to in the coming months.

Jarvis had a clear strategy:

“By investing nearly 15 minutes in the end, with him, talking about what our particular policies were on immigration, but on a range of other issues as well, he was reassured by that, and we parted as friends, with a good firm handshake, and he looked me in the eye and said right, fair enough, I’m going to vote Labour.

Investing the time is what really makes the difference…We’ve got to be where they are and we’ve got to make a positive case for what we’re about, but it’s also got to be caveated by an explanation of what a vote for Ukip actually means.”

During the interview, he bats away questions about electoral reform and whether he’d consider running for leader – the second of which he’s grown accustomed to hearing in the short time he’s been an MP. He says such questions are “tittle tattle and this is not a time for tittle tattle” – his eyes are set on Labour winning a majority.

Amidst the bad polling and talks of another hung parliament, Jarvis’s optimism is encouraging –  particularly because it’s not rooted in naivety.  He’s crystal clear that people feel problems have outgrown politics and that it’s down to the Labour party – MPs and activists alike – to demonstrate that Labour’s policies will have a massive impact on peoples’ lives. And he says, even if they aren’t receptive, “that’s what we’ve got to do.”

He’s not wrong.