In a week where Tory MPs have reportedly been told to use the terms 'gauging up' or 'stepping up' for fear that 'nobody knows what levelling up means', Rishi Sunak's audience today showed that they understand it exactly.
As Sunak stood in front of his audience in the seaside town reeling off a list of northern towns that have been allocated money in this latest round of the government's Levelling Up Fund, one woman only had one question on her mind: 'Can we have some more please?'.
There were laughs, but it's not a question any in the PM's Yorkshire constituency of Richmond, which was allocated £19 million of the fund, are likely to be asking. He has been accused of favouritism, as well as of 'shovelling money' into the south, instead of sending it where it is most needed - leaving northerners hungry.
