Johnson offers the West little encouragement

THERE were as many jokes about Michael Gove’s dancing as mentions of the West in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech at the Conservative Party Conference yesterday.

While Mr Johnson bemoaned the poor public transport options available to people in Leeds, he did not find time to mention those of Bristol.

He referenced York, Blackpool, Doncaster, the Ribble Valley, the Pennines and the Northern Powerhouse in his speech.

But bar a solitary note about Pfizer’s recent announcement about opening a vaccine packaging plant in Swindon he did not mention the South West at all.

Nor did he give any airtime to the crises affecting pig farmers, hauliers or people simply trying to fill their cars with petrol.

Reaction in the region was somewhat muted yesterday, with business groups in the West calling for more support and concrete policies.

Ian Mean, Business West’s Gloucestershire director, said: “Boris Johnson’s closing speech to the Tory conference had little to please business.

“He talked about an economy which had traditionally been ‘drift and dither’, and again rammed home the message that we need a high skills, high wage economy.

“That vision is undoubtedly supported by much of business, but what I think they now need is clear, open dialogue with Government support to achieve that goal.

“The picture that Boris painted was far from the reality that most business faces today of recruitment and serious supply shortages.

“This was a speech that could well have been one of his Daily Telegraph columns with lots of Boris humour and rhetoric.

“But did we get any firmer detail on those levelling up policies and plans? No.”

Meanwhile, Ian Girling, Dorset Chamber chief executive, said: “Boris Johnson raised some important points.

“It is essential that Dorset and the South West receives its fair share of investment and support.

“Dorset does not necessarily have the high levels of prosperity that is always assumed.

“The skills agenda is a huge issue while the British Chambers of Commerce has recently shown that investment levels are low at the moment as businesses recover from the Covid pandemic.

“The small print of Boris’s pledges will need to be examined to see exactly how they translate into action and how this relates to support for business.”

Much of the opposition reaction to Mr Johnson’s speech yesterday was focused on the removal of the temporary £20 per week uplift in Universal Credit – another topic not mentioned in the speech.

Labour’s Bristol South MP Karin Smyth wrote on Twitter: “When we needed action we got empty slogans. The PM’s speech was a complacent jumble of words.

“Nothing new on further education, Tory tax hikes, the climate crisis.

“Bluff and bluster may be fine for the Conservative Govt, but it will do nothing to help people in Bristol South.”