Not delivering on levelling up promises could be Liz Truss's undoing - Jayne Dowle

Once Brexit was indeed ‘done’ (sort of) levelling up apparently became, the ‘defining mission’ of Johnson’s government, give or take the odd pandemic to deal with.

Or did this big idea, under the departmental leadership of determined Scot Michael Gove – who produced a 297-page manifesto detailing plans to improve infrastructure, invest in education and reinvigorate struggling towns – simply take form as a reward to the sizeable 2019 intake of Red Wall Conservative MPs. And as a way to keep the new Northern Tory voters who’d put these new faces into parliament happy and on-side?

But now it’s all gone quiet. Meanwhile, Nadhim Zahawi, quite likely about to become the shortest-lived Chancellor of the Exchequer in modern British political history, has been on a taxpayer-funded junket to America of all places, officially meeting people to discuss the global cost- of-living crisis.

He would have done a lot better to focus his attention closer to home, where charities are warning that hundreds, if not thousands, of people will die this winter as they won’t be able to afford food or heating.

If levelling-up ever meant anything to these politicians, they would have stayed by their posts – bearing in mind that whatever happens when the new Conservative leader/de facto PM is announced on Monday, both Johnson and Zahawi will still represent constituencies – and at least looked as if they cared.

Whilst the entire country is suffering as inflation rises about 10 per cent for the first time in four decades, driven by the sky-rocketing cost of energy, fuel and food, and households approach potential annual energy bills of £6,000 per annum with horror, it’s fair to say that less-privileged regions like ours are suffering far more than those on a sounder economic footing. This fact seems to have entirely escaped the men still nominally in charge at Number 10 and 11 Downing Street. Still, their defenders might argue, they’re on their way out now. That’s true. And that’s what is worrying keen political observers.

Levelling up has barely merited a mention in the manifestos of either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, despite both leadership contenders making a massive deal of their Northern credentials, with mixed results it must be said.

Favourite Truss, who describes herself as a ‘straight-talking Yorkshire woman’ was indeed so straight-talking, she managed to upset the entire alumni of her comprehensive alma mater, Roundhay School in Leeds, by claiming it let its pupils down.

Sunak meanwhile, speaking from his gracious £2m Georgian manor in Kirby Sigston, North Yorkshire, proclaims himself as “the most Northern Chancellor that this party has had for something like 70-odd years”.

Fine words butter no parsnips – even if you’re fortunate enough to afford to buy and cook Christmas dinner this year.

Truss, if she wins as is expected, should take nothing for granted in the North. Her promises, to expand the number of metro mayors, to include a levelling-up secretary in her Cabinet – and I’d be very surprised if it doesn’t end up as a tick-box post coupled up with some other major responsibility of state – and reverse the downgrade of the Northern Powerhouse Rail project seem perfunctory rather than passionate.

One of her key supporters, Jake Berry, chair of the Northern Research Group of Tory MPs, says the next Tory leader must be “rapidly coming up with solutions”.

“This is probably the greatest crisis of my political career. And nothing in terms of the government supporting families in this country and businesses should be off the table,” he told Times Radio last week.

Sources within the Truss camp have said she will help rectify this, by building upon existing government mechanisms to get money to people.

But it would seem that the focus of her “handouts”, as she has previously described them, is likely to be Universal Credit claimants and pensioners. Not hard-working families then, many of whom were persuaded by Brexit bluster to vote Tory for the first time in 2019.

This limited scope signals a parsimonious approach from ‘small state, low taxes’ Truss; she has already tripped up over plans to reduce the pay of public sector workers.

One anonymous Tory strategist told a writer for the New Statesman magazine recently that Truss “understands levelling up, but she won’t do it”. This, which seems increasingly to be true, could be the start of her undoing, and that’s before she even gets the key to Number 10.