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Levelling-up plans are a cynical collection of half-baked ideas

Editorial: ‘Levelling up’ has been set back and denuded since it was first coined as an election campaign slogan

Wednesday 02 February 2022 21:30 GMT
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When Boris Johnson brought the good news gospel of levelling up to the inhabitants of neglected northern towns and left-behind regions at the 2019 general election, he obviously forgot to tell them that they wouldn’t be levelled up for about a decade. Had the prime minister mentioned that they would have to wait until 2030 for regeneration, jobs and prosperity, they might not have been so willing to “lend” him their votes.

According to the much-hyped levelling-up white paper, even in a decade, levelling up, whatever that means, will still be limited and incomplete. Of course, altering the economic geography of a nation is a long-term project, but such was the boosterish atmosphere of the Conservatives’ triumphant 2019 winter campaign in the “red wall” seats that an essential sense of perspective was somehow lost. No government can guarantee economic growth, and it is dishonest to give that impression.

The white paper unveiled by Michael Gove does seem a miserable, cynical affair. The overriding political fact is that 2030 is at least two general elections away, by which point Lord Gove and Lord Johnson will be cracking gags on the lecture circuit and need never worry about Wigan again. This cabinet, or most of it, will not have to face any consequences for failing to fulfil the proposed legal duties to level up, vaguely drafted as they will be.

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