Liz Truss: An open letter from The Yorkshire Post to our new Prime Minister

Dear Ms Truss: as you take up office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, it is customary and courteous to offer congratulations on achieving something quite special, for leading our great nations is undoubtedly one of all of politics’ most prestigious privileges.

At the best of times, running the country is a daunting, difficult and unenviable charge and on this occasion, as Her Majesty the Queen anoints her 15th Prime Minister, the job at hand is as invidious as perhaps it has ever been.

Ms Truss, you follow in the footsteps of Boris Johnson, a Prime Minister whose time in office has all but destroyed any trust that previously existed between the electorate and those who govern. The first sitting Prime Minister to break the law, Mr Johnson drove a coach and horses through standards in public life, making a mockery of the Nolan Principles - once considered sacrosanct. If you are going to stand any chance whatsoever of picking up the pieces left behind by Mr Johnson, you must place the restoration of faith in Government at the heart of every decision taken from here on in. It is no exaggeration to suggest: our democracy depends on it.

The people of this country are fed up of being taken for fools: ordinary men and women up and down the country feel powerless, voiceless and in many cases hopeless. Yes, even hope in some communities has been taken away. We do not believe the Westminster elite and its caravan of Whitehall sycophants cares a jot about we who live and work in the regions. ‘Levelling Up’ to date has proved a unicorn policy that exists only in the rhetoric of those who wish to deceive us. Tokenist policies at best, central government on the Levelling Up scorecard - upon which so many people’s life chances depend - has hitherto not landed a blow.

That is why we are calling on you, Prime Minister, to entrust the Levelling Up policy to the very regions it purports to serve. Every challenge the nation faces can be made more easily surmountable if you succeed with Devolution proper. By engaging energetic, capable, accountable leaders at a local level across the country, Ms Truss, you have in your hands the opportunity to leave a Premier’s legacy like no other. The permanent structural handover of powers and pounds to people who actually care about the place they call home and who will strain every sinew, day and night, to provide opportunities for people locally. From culture to social care, transport to education, innovations to creativity: let us lead where Westminster repeatedly fails.

Quite simply, there is too much power in the centre - a core that has well and truly proven itself to be rotten - and not nearly enough knowledge of any material substance. Prime Minister, the time for genuine political reform, reform that will begin to rebuild our battered nation, is best placed with our local leaders who stand ready to own and create your legacy on your behalf. We are the solution, not - as we have for so long been cast - the problem.

You have in your hands the ability to create a modern nation; one that looks forward with progressive ambition, and reaches out to international partners for prosperity as much as national and international security.

Yes, of course: your top priority must be the cost-of-living crisis. Recent polling shows that little else occupies the thoughts of householders struggling, and in many cases already unable, to make ends meet. We wait with much trepidation to see whether or not you have the political mettle to put a stop to rank corruption amongst big corporations, subjecting us all to punitive rackets. Whose side are you on, Prime Minister? That of the fossil fuel fat cats creaming off billions of pounds in profits from hard-up families? Incompetent water company bosses taking home millions in bonuses - whilst losing billions of gallons of this precious natural resource - with one hand and killing our beaches with poisonous effluent on the other? Or, perhaps, our side, Prime Minister?

Because lord knows there remains the long list of challenges that have proliferated and festered whilst your party has been in power. The NHS is on its knees, despite the promise of 40 new (these were never all new hospitals at all) hospitals. Our police force remains woefully underfunded and stands as a disjointed, fragmented mess whose leadership cannot get to grips with the endemic misogyny that has seen women let down repeatedly to the point where not just women but society as a whole struggles to trust the police in this country.

Then there is the climate challenge: Britain, on more than one occasion, has been ablaze this summer. Fire chiefs and their crews found themselves at breaking point, unable to respond to risk-to-life calls because lives were already at risk - theirs included - as they tried to hold back marauding walls of fire threatening to incinerate all life and property in its path.

The list goes on and on, and, Prime Minister, and whilst we appreciate it is not for this newspaper to patronise you as you set about, to use your party’s parlance, building back better, we would not be doing our job as representatives of the communities we serve - and have served since 1754 - were we not to state our case.

As we do so, please allow The Yorkshire Post to reiterate what we believe is key: step forwards and shake our hands as you look to hand over genuine powers and investment, and watch as the people of this region drive forwards with being the solution that reinvigorates the United Kingdom from the bottom up.