Levelling up is mission of empty promises – Jayne Dowle

Michael Gove, whom the Prime Minister put in charge of making sense of what has been a nebulous, hypocritical and contradictory concept, is trying his damnedest to make these 12 levelling-up promises stick, but there is something so deeply hollow at the heart of it all.

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The timing could not be worse. Someone in government obviously thought, given that an increasingly sceptical public needs convincing that the Prime Minister and his shambolic Cabinet have our interests at heart, that now would be a good time to deliver a flagship election promise that is already two years late.

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Rather, it has been a massive miscalculation. It looks desperate and worse, insulting to those who live in less-favoured areas and their political leaders, who must now try and implement vague measures.

Indeed, in a week when Johnson has struggled to hit the right note as more Tory MPs send in letters of no confidence in his leadership, these promises look like a cynical attempt to buy us all off.

At best they are a wish-list – statements of intent rather than forensic detail on how improvements will be costed, put in place, achieved and verified.

At worst, they show no empathy for the people they purport to help. Also little or no understanding that the falling value of wages and benefits as inflation soars is the biggest challenge to meet. In this failing, they achieve the opposite of what they are supposed to do.

And the point is that there are huge and deep-rooted differences between the rich and poor areas of the UK which colour every aspect of daily life, from health and life expectancy to public transport and schooling.

Successive Tory governments have allowed these differences to fester. 
And this government, under the stewardship of a charlatan, has rammed them home.

I wonder what senior police chiefs think of the pledge to achieve “an overall fall in homicide, serious violence, and neighbourhood crime, focused on worst-affected areas” when, to date, the Metropolitan Police are investigating 12 gatherings in Downing Street and Whitehall held during the pandemic when strict laws were in place relating to social contact.

And take the two health missions – “a narrowing in healthy life expectancy between the UK areas where it is highest and lowest, with the overall average healthy life expectancy rising by five years by 2035” and “an improvement in perceived wellbeing in all parts of the UK”.

With the NHS under unprecedented pressure, the waiting list stretching to six million people, GP appointments rationed, fuel bills rising and decent 
food increasingly beyond the reach of ordinary budgets, how does the Government think the first mission will be achieved? Do Ministers even realise that all these things create a dilatory effect on improving health and life expectancy?

And as for “an improvement in perceived wellbeing in all parts of 
the UK”? Well, I’m sorry, but that’s 
so hopelessly inchoate it shouldn’t 
even have got near the list. Did Carrie Johnson put it in? “Wellbeing” is a 
luxury only the affluent can afford,
the type who hold parties all the time 
and spend £840 on a roll of wallpaper.

The inequities of ‘partygate’ aside for a moment, it is arguable that if many parts of the country, including Yorkshire, had not been battered by the austerity measures of the David Cameron years, they wouldn’t be struggling to such a degree now. Add in the disruption and hiatus that Brexit brought, followed by a global pandemic which has dealt a hammer blow to local economies, and the backdrop is bleak.

That the Prime Minister and colleagues now appear to have been living it up in Downing Street, quaffing Prosecco and munching on M&S nibbles when so many people have found their incomes flatlining, creates a highly invidious climate of distrust, and yes, even disgust.

It is facile of the Government to think that announcing these 12 missions this week will impress those of us who live in the most-afflicted communities. And I will count my own town of Barnsley amongst these. There are children growing up here in working families with no coats, shoes or even beds. They go to schools where teachers bring in food to feed those who have nothing in the cupboard at home, those who have never even seen a birthday cake.

I see nothing about direct help for these children or for their parents hiding from the bailiffs, or their grandparents suffering with no hot water. People should be at the heart of politics, not empty promises built on guilt.

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