“Levelling-up” is a canny political slogan that won the Tories many votes. It is also a pyramid of piffle, as its creator might say.
“Lying-up” would be a more accurate description of what they’re about, because it’s all my eye and Betty Martin.
They promise to revive towns they have ignored for decades, but what they’re really up to is buying votes with taxpayers’ money.
Ministers are funnelling cash into their own constituencies and marginal seats, vital for the general election.
In the USA, this is known as pork barrel politics: milking the public purse to reward their supporters and for electoral advantage.
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It’s happening clear across the country, and nowhere more so than in Yorkshire, where so many ‘Red Wall’ seats fell to the Conservatives.
Forget promises of “levelling up” without favour. Ministers are dishing out money to Whitby (Tory), Shipley (Tory), Morley (Tory), Stocksbridge (Tory gain) and Todmorden (Calder Valley, Tory).
They have ignored pleas from former mining towns and villages like Barnsley, Thurnscoe, Mexborough, Wath-on-Dearne, Rawmarsh and Bolton-on-Dearne – all ranked much higher on the scale of deprivation. But unwinnable by the Tories.
John Healey, Labour MP for three of these places, says: “The Government’s claim that it wants to level up the country is a lie and a sham.
“Levelling up has to mean giving extra help and opportunities to people and areas that need them both. Ministers are not doing that, and they won’t explain why.”
Of course they won’t. The lie is sustained by silence.
Don’t just take it from Labour. Lord Michael Heseltine, Thatcher’s industry secretary, says “there is no coherence or strategic plan” behind the policy. Really?
Hezza recalls how, in the 1980s, fellow Tories told him not to invest in Liverpool “because there are no votes in it”.
Forty years on, the penny – your penny – has dropped. Kwasi Kwarteng, the multi-millionaire, smirking old Etonian Business Secretary, boasts that the levelling-up scam won them the Hartlepool by-election.
If enough people believe the lie, it will prevail.
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The Americans still believe in UFOs, most of which seem to fly over their country. I was a believer, too, until I saw a herd of pigs flying over Downing Street, and realised it was just Boris Johnson rehearsing for Prime Minister’s Questions.
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Nottingham Castle, which isn’t a castle, is reopening to tourists after a three-year, £30million refurb.
It was once the most-marketed fortress in the world, appearing on the back of Player’s Navy Cut cig packets.
Tourism chiefs hope 300,000 visitors will come every year, for the museum and a Robin Hood Experience.
I wish them luck. They’ll need it.
For three years I lived below the dominant castle rock, in Hope Drive (if you must know), but I was never tempted to climb to the grim Victorian mansion on the top.
Not when the Trip to Jerusalem, said to be England’s oldest pub, was less than half way up.
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Gardening should be taught in schools, says TV presenter Carol Klein. Quite right. If only they could teach her infectious smile and delightful manner as well, the world would be a better place. Happy birthday of yesterday, Lancashire lass!
