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The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Northern Goal: Is Levelling Up working?

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Levelling Up was a key policy after the Conservatives swept the Red Wall in 2019. Three years later and Tory chaos has the policy to bring greater equity between the North and the South floundering by the roadside. Rob Parsons, editor of The Northern Agenda joins Jacob Jarvis to find out if there’s still reason to be optimistic.  “Restoring pride to people’s places is definitely a good thing to do. Whether it will address these massive inequalities in skills and jobs and transport, is a different thing.” “A lot of people spent a lot of time and money bidding for this money, and they didn’t get it. There were places in the North where their bid was unsuccessful but the neighbouring town did. That did create bitterness, and it did create cynicism towards the criteria.” “There needs to be more to the conversation not just about giving pots of money, but power to raise their own money.” Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Jacob Jarvis. Producer: Jet Gerbertson. Assistant producer: Kasia Tomasiewicz. Lead producer: Jacob Jarvis. Bunker music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. Artwork by James Parrett. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Instagram | Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved

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photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.

0:11.8

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0:13.0

I loved going to college.

0:14.0

It's good you can retrain and do something.

0:16.0

Yeah, yeah.

0:17.0

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look after theirs with dental life. Pick but hear it in Boris Johnson's voice.

1:14.0

That concerns me, one, because I'd rather not hear Boris Johnson rattling around my head,

1:19.0

and two, because it makes me just think it's a piece of populist bluster. Allow me to be cynical.

1:25.1

Could this apparent commitment just have been a ploy to cling on to votes up north?

1:30.4

I'm Jacob Jarvis and here to discuss this with me is Rob Parsons editor of the Northern Agenda newsletter.

1:36.0

Hey Rob.

1:37.0

Hi Jacob.

1:38.0

Rob does the phrase levelling up really mean anything concrete do you think? It does in the sense that it is the

1:45.9

latest sort of iteration of something that governments for years if not decades have been trying to do which is to make our country more

1:57.4

equal than it is at the moment and at its heart the point of levelling up is to allow it to be that someone who was born in a town in the north, say Blackpool for example, has the same life opportunities as someone who was born in London or the southeast.

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