The key to levelling up? Focus on the small stuff

People just want their areas to be happier, more prosperous versions of what they are already, writes Ed Dorrell

Michael Gove, secretary of state for levelling up (PA Archive)

The question of what “levelling up” means has been challenging policy wonks, journalists and politicians for much of the two years since Boris Jonson’s 2019 electoral shockwave.

On the face of it, the challenge is a simple one: how can Conservative minsters improve the lives of the millions of Red Wall residents who lent them their vote two years ago? But while the challenge might seem clear, the answer can look horribly complicated, mired in economic strategy and bureaucratic red tape.

Successive governments have struggled to reverse years of economic (and at least partial social) decline in huge pockets of the north of England and the West Midlands. If you go all the way back to John Major’s government you can find attempts to bring these economies and the lives of the people who work within them up to something like the more affluent south.