Levelling up has been a total failure – here’s the evidence

Birmingham's Curzon Street station under construction: the demise of the HS2 project shows how levelling up has floundered. UAV 4/Shutterstock

In the UK’s 2019 general election, regional inequality took centre stage. Conservative candidate Boris Johnson harnessed the widespread pro-Brexit sentiment and capitalised on how the Labour Party had been weakened under Jeremy Corbyn to storm to victory.

Johnson owed his win as much to turning to northern, traditionally Labour seats (in what has now become known as the “red wall”) as to the Conservatives’ tradiitonal southern heartlands. Bolstered by this newfound political strength in northern England, Johnson dubbed his flagship policy “levelling up”.