Jayne Dowle: My town needs a fighting chance from its MP

But given that the Labour candidate, Dan Jarvis, looks likely to win – the disgraced former MP Eric Illsley had a majority of more than 11,000 – isn’t it time to put aside the insults and the intimidation we have seen on our streets these past few weeks?

This should be a positive campaign where policies come first, policies which will benefit the whole town and all of its people. And it won’t end when the votes are counted on Thursday night.

It looks like Mr Jarvis is going to have a busy few weeks. So I thought I would give him a hand and write him a to-do list – the five things he needs to tackle first. Talk to anybody connected with his campaign, and there is only one item on this list; jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, and more jobs. I agree.

Jobs must be the number one priority. More than one in five of Barnsley’s working age population relies on state benefits to survive. We have more NEETS (young people not in education, employment or training) than almost anywhere else in the country. And the jobs that we do have to offer are overwhelmingly low-skilled, low-paid, and too often, short-term, with precious little security.

There are some rays of hope, such as the arrival of the mail-order company ASOS in Grimethorpe. It is reported that this will create 1,000 jobs. But there are hundreds of people chasing every vacancy. We need ASOS, but we need a hundred companies like it, and we need Mr Jarvis to pull out every stop to persuade them to come here.

And we need to connect education to employment. Barnsley’s schools are (slowly) improving. We managed to escape the axe that fell on Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme, and all our secondary schools are being rebuilt. But it is not enough to provide state-of-the-art classrooms.

We have to foster a new attitude, that education is not just about the facilities that a shiny new school can offer, it’s about teaching our children that they are capable of more than they ever imagined.

If we are to create a diverse and sustainable economy, we need to start encouraging more young people to enter further and higher education, to have the confidence to become the lawyers and doctors and engineers and entrepreneurs of the future. We need them in turn to become strong local role models, who can go into schools and talk to younger kids and inspire them. And we need to attract the best and brightest teachers to come here to Barnsley.

With the demise of the Education Maintenance Allowance, this is going to be a tough one for Mr Jarvis to tackle. But if he doesn’t, he is never going to get the bottom of a problem which has blighted Barnsley’s chances of success for generations.

I guess what I’m talking about is encouraging aspiration. So let’s put that next on the list. In political terms, this is a difficult one to quantify.

But as an MP, we need Mr Jarvis to get on board the big national debate about social mobility. I’m fascinated to know what he, as an outsider to Barnsley, makes of his putative constituents. But one thing he must understand is that 30 years ago, before the heart was ripped out of the town by the closure of the mining industry, Barnsley had pride. And despite the tight social hierarchy of traditional mining communities, people had ambition. They believed that if they worked hard, they could achieve, earn decent money, buy a nice house, and make something of themselves. There are still people like that in Barnsley, but increasingly, they are overwhelmed by the culture of dependency that has taken root.

And with social mobility, comes better health and well-being. Again, this will be a difficult one for our new MP to tackle in purely political terms.

But Barnsley has some of the highest rates of obesity, smoking, teenage pregnancy and general ill-health in England. It is said that a child born here can expect to live two years less than the national average, and a full eight years less than a child born in affluent Chelsea in London. Can Mr Jarvis perform a miracle? Not overnight. But he can surely speak up for those who need a voice, and encourage those who can help themselves to do so.

And if he tackles all of the above, then perhaps the fifth item on my to-do list will eventually solve itself. Sometimes, I walk around Barnsley town centre and come to the conclusion that we are a town going backwards, not forwards. Shops boarded up. The massive retail regeneration scheme on hold.

An unfinished apartment block standing sentry to lost hope. Forget the skirmishes of the by-election campaign. Dan Jarvis fought for his country. If he wins, can he now fight for Barnsley?