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

The government's push to bridge Britain's geographical divide is unlikely to work - and there are better policies that will

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.