Dame Tessa Jowell to be awarded peerage for role in delivering 2012 Olympics

Tessa Jowell today pledged to be a “Lady for London” after controversially accepting a peerage while campaigning to be the capital’s next Mayor.

Her ennoblement means she will be formally styled Baroness Jowell in future — but she said she preferred to be known simply as Tessa.

“I’m going to do it as a voice for London,” she told the Evening Standard in her first public reaction to the news.

However, a rival campaigner in the battle for Mayor of London asked: “How many jobs does she want to have?”

Dame Tessa’s peerage was the biggest surprise in a well-trailed list of new peers this afternoon.

Sbe said her case was different to Boris Johnson, who has been strongly criticised by Labour for being both Mayor and an MP at the same time.

“It is not two jobs,” she said. “I want one job, which is to be Mayor of London. If I am elected Mayor that will be my job, and everything else will be in the service of being Mayor.”

Ed Miliband nominated Dame Tessa, 67, for the House of Lords, said Labour sources, because of her record of bringing the 2012 Olympics to the capital. She said she “thought long and hard” before accepting.

“Ed was keen that I be a voice for London and that is what I will do,” she said.

“I will bring forward a backbench Bill for London at the first opportunity, setting out the powers that London should have, and I will highlight the impact of Tory policies on Londoners.”