Keir Starmer won’t win back North by blaming Tories – The Yorkshire Post says

Our invitation to Boris Johnson on these pages in yesterday’s edition remains open.

However last year’s agenda-setting Power Up The North campaign was a challenge to all political parties to come up with a new policy prospectus – and this includes Labour too. But what is surprising is Labour’s reticence after it lost so many once impregnable ‘red wall’ seats in the North at the last election just over a year ago. The latest offering to this newspaper from Jim McMahon, the Shadow Transport Secretary, ventured: “The North can no longer be an afterthought for this government.”

Given that Mr McMahon is tasked with holding his opposite number Grant Shapps to account for transport and the Northern Powerhouse, this platitude was about as vague as the phrase “levelling up” and people here have a right to expect better of Her Majesty’s Opposition under Sir Keir Starmer.

On familiar territory while meeting flooding victims in Doncaster – Sir Keir’s wife hails from the town – he now needs to move onto more difficult political terrain and come up with his own policies, as distinct from soundbites, and demonstrate both their financial viability and economic credibility.

This will serve two purposes – it will help hold Ministers to account and show that Labour, too, will never again treat the North as “an afterthought”.