What is levelling up, Boris Johnson’s big idea?

RARELY HAS a slogan been rewarded with its own government department. So it is with “levelling up”. Together with “get Brexit done”, the phrase dominated the Conservative Party’s rhetoric at the general election in 2019 and is now bureaucratically enshrined in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. On February 2nd Boris Johnson’s government is expected to publish a white paper containing details of its plans for levelling up. Critics call it conveniently timed to divert attention from civil service and police investigations into parties held in Downing Street during coronavirus lockdowns. But what does the jargon amount to?

In broad terms, levelling up is best understood as a right-of-centre method of reducing inequalities without redistributing wealth (via tax rises) from the rich to the poor, as is more usually associated with the left. Mr Johnson’s predecessor as prime minister, the hapless Theresa May, expressed it thus: “Socialism is about levelling down. Conservatism is about levelling up. Socialists believe that, if everyone cannot have something, no one shall. Conservatives reject that.” In a speech last year, Mr Johnson applied the same principle to regional disparities, widely identified by both experts and voters as Britain’s principal source of contemporary inequality: “We don’t want to decapitate the tall poppies, we don’t think you can make the poor parts of the country richer by making the rich parts poorer.” The government also has a very obvious vested interest in levelling up. Its majority in Parliament was founded on grabbing seats in traditionally Labour but Brexit-voting bits of the north and the Midlands. Lavishing attention on small towns that feel neglected and “left behind” should pay electoral dividends. In this sense, levelling up is the B-side track to Brexit.

So far, the focus has been on improving internet connectivity and transport links, principally railways, as the best ways to stimulate poorer regional economies, “to revolutionise our patterns of work and provide a tail wind for levelling up”, according to the prime minister. Yet these policies have been characterised by indecisiveness and intellectual confusion. The cancellation of part of the enormously expensive High Speed 2 railway produced howls of betrayal in the north, even if smaller rail projects might be better value. Equally, the government talks a lot about devolving revenue-raising powers without quite having the courage to do so. All the evidence shows that regional inequality is closely linked to over-centralisation, and Britain is the most centralised country in the G7.

With its white paper, however, Mr Johnson’s government hopes to grasp the nettle. It is certainly right to try, because regional imbalances have blighted Britain for too long. Male life expectancy in Glasgow is still a decade lower than in central London; on some measures, the gap between the output of the poorest and richest parts of Britain is higher than in any other OECD country. As usual, Mr Johnson has seized on the right subject. Whether Tory-style levelling up is the right fix remains to be tested, if, indeed, it is ever tried. Time is running out.