Michael Gove should be a bishop, not a politician. He smiles. He nods. He declares “missions” and blesses all and sundry. His current diocese is Britain’s northern cities, which are suffering the worst regional disparity of any OECD country and said to be crippling the British economy. Boris Johnson has acknowledged this in his “levelling up” agenda. But to govern is to govern, not just to mean well.
Gove’s Wednesday sermon on levelling up meant well, but he might have been speaking of a distant province of a forgotten empire. The people of the north, he said, deserved better transport, better education, better housing, training, health, science, anything you cared to mention. They should have it, God willing. He promised that mayors would be appointed, plans formulated and 22,000 civil servants sent out from London, like missionaries to the unwashed. But please don’t mention money. It is so vulgar.
