Keir Starmer eyes centre ground with levelling up promise - The Yorkshire Post says

The phrase was famously popularised by Boris Johnson during his successful 2019 General Election campaign and the ambition was a repeated refrain of his administration, to the extent of renaming the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to include the phrase.

While there were entirely reasonable questions about whether the delivery was actually coming anywhere close to matching the rhetoric, there was little doubt that the Government was keen to at least show there was a perception it wanted to reduce some of the regional inequalities which have held so many places like Yorkshire back for too long.

Although Liz Truss has suggested she is keen to continue the agenda – and has actually gone further than Mr Johnson in promising to build Northern Powerhouse Rail in full via Bradford – the reality of the economic crisis now facing the country following the disastrous Mini-Budget means the Government’s attention is likely to be elsewhere.

New Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has already effectively ripped up the Mini-Budget and Ms Truss’s tax-cutting promises and admitting that further austerity is on the way for public services.

While such candour is required to demonstrate to the markets that Britain still understands the importance of fiscal responsibility after a few weeks where that no longer appeared to be a given, it also shows the investment required to make levelling up a true success is unlikely to be forthcoming any time soon.

Should Labour come to power in the next few years, they will face similar financial challenges. But they now have the opportunity to take on the levelling up mantle popularised by their opponents.