Boris Johnson seeks to head off revolt in the Tory shires
Levelling up won’t make rich areas poorer, says PM – but his Conservative critics are unconvinced
Boris Johnson today sought to reassure traditional southern Conservative heartlands that they won’t be forgotten as he outlined his flagship “levelling up” programme during a speech in the West Midlands.
The prime minister said his government plans to invest more in poorer areas but promised there would not be a “levelling down” affecting more affluent areas. The policy would not result in “a jam-spreading operation”, he insisted.
Tall poppies
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“We don’t want to decapitate the tall poppies,” Johnson said, in a gambit interpreted by many as designed to reassure southern voters. “We don’t think you can make the poor parts of the country richer by making the rich parts poorer.”
He also said investing in more deprived areas will relieve pressure on parts of the UK that are “over-heating”, and that previous governments focused too much on “areas where house prices are already high and where transport is already congested”.
Concrete policy announcements included measures aimed at “stimulating growth”, says ITV, such as £4.2bn for eight city regions to improve their transport networks and £50m for football pitches, as well as a promise to put “rings of steel” around towns plagued by county lines drugs gangs.
But “the heart of Boris Johnson’s levelling-up speech” was “the imperative of transferring power back to regions and localities” through an increase in local leaders, such as country and metro mayors, said ITV’s Robert Peston.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Indeed, the PM said an increase in local leadership was the “yeast that lifts the whole mattress of dough” in the pursuit of “levelling up” the country. “This country is not only one of the most imbalanced in the developed world, it is also one of the most centralised – and those two defects are obviously connected,” he said.
Right-wing reaction
The prime minister sees levelling up as the “fundamental purpose of his government”, says Alex Wickham in Politico’s London Playbook, but has been “criticised by Conservative MPs worried about Downing Street neglecting their traditional heartlands”, he writes.
Today, therefore, Johnson was under pressure to “deliver on substance” – especially as he finds himself mired in an avoidable culture war spat over racism in football, and as backbench discontent increases over Covid, cuts to foreign aid, and social care spending.
The Conservatives’ recent byelection loss in Chesham and Amersham “has been taken by nervous Tories and confident Liberal Democrats as a sign of wider Conservative complacency about its vote in the south”, says Ailbhe Rea in the New Statesman.
And while most media commentators argue the speech was designed to reassure the southern heartlands, The Sun’s Harry Cole saw it instead as a “passionate defence” of the levelling-up agenda, designed to “confront those Tory critics who believe he is too focused on the North”.
But many of his own MPs seemed unimpressed. Discontented Tory MPs told The Telegraph that the speech would fail to soothe “disillusioned” southern Conservative voters.
“It might be an attempt, but it’s not what I hear from my Blue Wall voters,” one former Cabinet minister told the paper. “Their disillusionment with the party is that they don’t think we are very conservative.
“The leadership jars with our traditional voters… back to being the nasty party,” the unnamed MP added.
“Meh” was the reaction of the right-wing political blog Guido Fawkes, which said the speech confirmed that “no-one knows what ‘levelling up’ means in specific policy terms, including Boris”.
Conservative MP Laura Farris seemed inclined to agree. “The thing about levelling up is because its a rather ambiguous phrase it means whatever anyone wants it to mean,” she said on the BBC’s Politics Live.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.
-
India elections start amid violence, hate speech accusations
Talking Points Narendra Modi seeks a third term while critics worry about the future of the country's democracy
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
'Biden is smart to keep the border-security pressure on'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Bird flu worries mount as virus found in milk, cows
Speed Read The FDA found traces of the virus in pasteurized grocery store milk
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Mark Menzies: Tories investigate MP after 'bad people' cash claims
Speed Read Fylde MP will sit as an independent while party looks into allegations he misused campaign funds on medical expenses and blackmail pay-out
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
Is David Cameron overshadowing Rishi Sunak?
Talking Point Current PM faces 'thorny dilemma' as predecessor enjoys return to world stage
By The Week UK Published
-
How will honeytrap scandal change Westminster?
Today's Big Question Security procedures laid bare by spear phishing attack as focus shifts to 'political insider' being responsible
By The Week UK Published
-
Will Aukus pact survive a second Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question US, UK and Australia seek to expand 'game-changer' defence partnership ahead of Republican's possible return to White House
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Farewell to Theresa May: a PM consumed by Brexit
Talking Point Maidenhead MP standing down at next general election
By The Week UK Published
-
Britain's biggest political donors
The Explainer With the 2024 general election set to be the highest-spending contest ever we look at who is giving to which party and why
By The Week UK Published
-
Can Boris Johnson save Rishi Sunak?
Today's Big Question Former PM could 'make the difference' between losing the next election and annihilation
By The Week UK Published
-
Badenoch, Johnson or 'full Trump': who is the future of the Tory Party?
Today's Big Question Tory moderates are preparing to do battle with the right of the party in a post-Sunak leadership election
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published