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Hello and welcome to the Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots. I'm Cindy Yu and I'm joined by Katie Balls and James Forsy. So after the Conservatives, very good local election results last week, they've tried to redefine what it means to level up and redefining themselves as a northern party. But that's left some people, especially in the south, a little bit peeved. Katie, can you explain what's been going on

in the party in terms of the starting fractures? Yes, well, if we go back to 2019 when Boris Johnson

won that majority of 80, very quickly the rhetoric coming from the Prime Minister and Downing Street was all about

the blue wall, formerly the red wall, and the level up agenda, which I think is very much

imagined, you know, when it was first come up with, with a focus on the Midlands and the North.

And this idea of making sure that these parts of the country can enjoy the prosperity and that you find in the big cities in the South.

Now, leveling up is not exclusive to the Midlands and North, but it is clearly how this policy

agenda came about.

Now, I think that just back then, I remember, you know, this is before the pandemic, but the gripe

you were getting from some MPs was, you know, how are you ever going to get any money from

the Treasury if you don't have one of these new seats, which the Prime Minister is staking so much

on. So if you're, you know, a southern MP, if you're in a home county seat, they'll feel

that as though they're rather out of vogue.

I think that this is rearing its head once again because if you look at the local election

results we just had, particularly on the Friday, really, you know, positive headlines,

positive results with the government in terms of increasing that hold in the Midlands and the North.

Lots of people said it might just be a fluke reaction to have former Labour voters vote Tory.

It now seems as they actually run and actually, you know, just hold, they're building on that.

So you have hardly pulled by election, the Tory's won by very comfortable margin.

You have the Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchin, who on a ridiculous majority, you know, over 70%.

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