Levelling up funding decisions leave Yorkshire in no doubt about where it stands with this Government - The Yorkshire Post says

The disparity between Yorkshire and the South East is clear for everyone to see, written out in cold, hard numbers.

Yorkshire has six projects greenlit totalling over £120m while the more affluent South East is awarded £210m. It sends a very clear message to voters in this region.

Countless polls have shown that support for the Conservative Party in Yorkshire is collapsing and this is the reason why.

The Tory Party is losing ground to Labour over its own flagship policy and there has been a clear grab by Sir Keir Starmer to take a hold of the Levelling Up agenda.

The Government would do well to remember that it was elected on the pledge to level up the country.

The most disappointing thing is that levelling up promised so much. It gave people in the region optimism.

Those living in the most disadvantaged parts of Britain were given hope. But we are now at a stage where the policy is in itself at risk of becoming toxic.

It stands to represent the ultimate betrayal of the region and is emblematic of this Government’s failures.

Voters in places like Doncaster, Don Valley and Dewsbury can be forgiven for cynically dismissing any talk of levelling up at the next General Election.

While the £120m funding is welcome, it is better than nothing, that amount simply won’t make up for a decade of austerity.

Besides, having regions fight against one another for pots of funding runs counter to the original purpose of levelling up.

Yorkshire is fed up with being left behind and while no one denies people in the South East the need for investment, it would require a blinkered politician to not see how this looks in the context of regional inequality, which Yorkshire has suffered from for far too long.