No one knows what was meant by “levelling up”. The very vagueness of this Boris Johnsonism was the key to its success. But the sky-high expectations raised in “red wall” seats look set to crash to Earth next week, among angrily disappointed voters in the Wakefield byelection.
Was it to be a levelling of people or places? Either way, an eloquent levelling up white paper landed earlier this year with no funding attached. When a minister last week called Birmingham and Blackpool “Godawful” places, it only confirmed suspicions that these Conservatives’ concerns for the “left behind” were always bogus: at heart, “Godawfuldom” is anywhere and anyone outside the south-east and the comfortable shires.
