The big idea: why we shouldn’t be levelling up

theguardian.com:

Last autumn, Boris Johnson brought the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities into being. Naming a ministry after a catchphrase seems to suit our age of rhetoric as policy. How long before we see a Department for Getting on Your Bike, or a Department for Unleashing the British Entrepreneurial Spirit?

The levelling up initiative was born out of the Conservatives’ 2019 election victory, in which many former Labour constituencies in the north and Midlands – the so called “red wall” – changed sides. The thinking was that these acquisitions, the fruits of the war over Brexit, could not be kept once Brexit was “done” unless their needs were addressed. The idea of levelling up – finding policies to reverse regional gaps in income, health, education and jobs – was part of a wider narrative of a “realignment”, moving left on economics, right on questions of social policy. It was a way to consolidate the coalition brought together by Brexit so that it would have a life beyond Brexit itself.

The problem is, levelling up is running into difficulties and looks as if it is getting nowhere. For a start, the government has been distracted by both Partygate and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While these distractions may be temporary, other obstacles will remain. The small-state, libertarian faction of the Tory party, which wants low taxes and a government that stays out of the economy, is no fan. Neither are those in the “blue wall”: MPs from traditional Tory constituencies that don’t want to lose funding to more deprived areas. Internal opposition aside, the pressure to keep taxes as low as possible, and the other calls on the government purse, greatly limit the cash available to make levelling up a reality.

But if the