Hello and welcome to a Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots. I'm Max Jeffrey and I'm joined by James Forsyth and Andrew Carter, Chief Executive of the Centre for Cities. Today we're going to be talking about one of the biggest items on the government's agenda, leveling up. James, you're writing your column for the Times today that's the next Tory Fult line. Can you tell us why So on Thursday, you had the whole kind of cabinet went into Downing Street for kind of five,

six hours of meetings on leveling up. I mean, that was an attempt of the government to kind of

thrash out more of its agenda. I think one of the challenges is that this whole sleaze scandal,

this whole debate about outside interests, has exposed the kind of

divide in the Tory party between what one secretary of state puts in between kind of red wallers

and red quarters.

And I think the challenge is what does leveling up mean?

I think some people think it means a much more interventionist industrial policy, an attempt to use that to try and boost growth in the regions.

Other cabinet ministers think that it's much more like a kind of minimum service guarantee,

but the state's job is simply to provide, make sure that everywhere has decent or good physical and digital infrastructure,

something that isn't true in the UK

right now, but that once the state has done that, that should be the end of it. And one of the

challenges is these, the kind of redwall MPs who are unsympathetic generally to the idea of

MPs having outside interests and not tend to cleave towards the former. And another problem is that by any kind of serious

definition of leveling up, not very much is going to be apparent by the next election, especially

if the next election is in 2023, but even if the next election is in 2024. And the danger

then becomes that you get a debate about, you know, do you throw money at problems to try and create a sense of

momentum? And, I mean, that will exacerbate all these Tory disputes, Tory splits, because if you do,

at that point, it's very hard to see, given the straightened state, the public finances,

how the Tories can cut taxes before the next election, and that means they go into the next

election as a tax-raising party. Andrew, I've always thought of leveling up as quite an anodyne phrase, but from what

James is saying, it can actually be a little controversial, at least on the Tory benches. What's the way

...