Conservative prime ministers are adept at finding ways to talk about inequality without naming the problem. David Cameron bemoaned “broken Britain” and proposed “the big society” as a remedy. The idea was that civic bonds could be strengthened to fill gaps left by cuts to state services. Theresa May pledged to address “burning injustices”, which she rightly identified as drivers of support for Brexit. But then she alighted on immigration as the emblematic problem. She saw that globalisation’s bounty had been unfairly distributed, but retreated to the politics of blaming foreigners.
Then came Boris Johnson and “levelling up”. Here, too, was recognition that many communities had been left behind and needed active government to help them catch up. But Mr Johnson’s idea, like most of his rhetoric, was a product of magical thinking. He wanted to spend money in deprived areas without making the case for increased public borrowing or raising new revenue from affluent voters.
Mr Johnson’s Commons majority was delivered by an unstable coalition of wealthy, fiscally conservative Tories and former Labour voters who wanted a prompt Brexit dividend in return for switching allegiance. An honest programme of levelling up would recognise that the more affluent half of that coalition should subsidise the rest. But that would go against instinctive Conservative horror of redistribution as an assault on liberty and a disincentive to enterprise.
Mr Johnson knows the arguments well enough, having made them himself. In 2013, as mayor of London, he described inequality and the “spirit of envy” it induced as “a valuable spur to economic activity”. Tory policy in this area is circumscribed by conviction that people escape poverty by efforts of individual will. The role of the state is to remove obstacles and reduce disincentives to that process (taxes being the main hurdle).
Liz Truss’s short, disastrous reign signalled a return to that orthodoxy. She attributed Britain’s economic malaise to an excessive focus on “more even distribution of incomes”. Her calamitous fiscal experiment – slashing taxes with no plan for new revenue – was predicated on faith that all would benefit from the growth that followed.
Rishi Sunak agrees, but also disagrees, with his predecessors. He has restated his government’s commitment to levelling up in principle, but struggles to give it content. When Tory MPs rebelled against targets for new housebuilding – a provision of the levelling up bill still grinding slowly through parliament – the prime minister surrendered.
Mr Sunak reversed most of Ms Truss’s budget policies, but with a view to one day cutting taxes, not spending to ease the cost of living crisis. Conservative MPs are said to be wary of using the phrase “levelling up” with constituents who don’t easily grasp its meaning, but it is still notionally a flagship policy. Their leader’s ongoing support for the concept seems to derive mostly from fear of provoking Mr Johnson’s loyal acolytes, who guard their champion’s legacy jealously.
This confusion of purpose will not go away. It comes from the core of an old Conservative doctrine that has nothing new to say about Britain’s present crisis. Mr Sunak lacks the imagination and the courage to pursue a meaningful levelling up agenda, which would involve some redistribution. But he also lacks the honesty to discard the label entirely, since that would mean abandoning even the pretence of caring about inequality.
