Boris Johnson wasted my levelling up idea. Here’s how Burnham and his ‘good growth’ plan can do better

‘Whitehall’s top-down, one size fits all approach cannot deal with complex realities on the ground.’ An ad hoarding in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Photograph: Richard Saker/The Guardian

Andy Burnham has set out his vision for “good growth in every postcode”. It may seem like levelling up 2.0 – and if so, that’s very good news for the country. Because, unlike his Labour and Conservative predecessors, Burnham may well have a far better sense of how to deliver it.

Boris Johnson lifted the levelling up language from the Department for Education (DfE), deployed during my time there, but then downgraded what should have been a defining purpose for his government to little more than a towns fund. Keir Starmer rightly identified “breaking down barriers to opportunity” as a government mission, but in office he hiked up employers’ national insurance – literally taxing opportunity – in a way that was always going to hit early career, younger workers the most.