1 Dec 2021

Can ‘levelling up’ bridge the north-south divide?

Liz Bates explains how what started as a slogan has now become important enough to have its own government department. 

Ever since Boris Johnson marched into Number 10 after his 2019 landslide, he has promised to level up.

But the government was accused of ‘betraying’ the North recently after scrapping parts of their plans for HS2 – the high-speed rail service that was meant to transport the region’s infrastructure.

Number 10 argued their revised plan for the project was still “one of the biggest single acts of levelling up of any government in history”

But what exactly is levelling up and do voters really understand it or even care about it?

Our political correspondent Liz Bates explains how a political slogan and manifesto promise is now considered important enough to have its own government department.

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