Britain will change for the better if we do truly ‘ level up’
MARGARET Thatcher is the most successful Conservative leader in history. In 1979, 1983 and 1987 she won what was then an unprecedented three landslide election victories.
It took 32 years for any of her Tory successors to manage a similar landslide – until Boris Johnson’s 80- seat triumph last December.
Mrs Thatcher’s success was built on the support of C1 and C2 voters: blue- collar supporters who saw a Conservative Party that stood for their values, as opposed to a Labour Party they regarded as alien. Boris Johnson’s victory last year took this further – across the board, blue- collar workers backed the Tories.
It did, of course, help the Conservatives no end that Labour was led by an extreme Left- wing terrorist sympathiser. But the party itself was also rightly seen as being almost entirely out of touch with the sort of people it claimed to represent.
BUT the Conservative majority was built on far more than opposition to Jeremy Corbyn. The extent of the triumph was a result of the so- called “Red Wall” – previously Labour constituencies across the Midlands and North of England that returned Conservative MPs, many for the first time.
To take this agenda forward a group of 40 MPs have now formed the Levelling Up Taskforce. Their aim is to tell the Cabinet they must not let the coronavirus crisis knock them off course from the promise of “levelling up” made to those voters in Red Wall seats.
December’s election changed British politics in ways we still don’t fully appreciate. Boris Johnson’s 80- seat majority makes him the first prime minister since Tony Blair with a mandate to reshape Britain – and with the necessary parliamentary support. It’s a futile game of “what might have been” to wonder where we would be now if the pandemic hadn’t struck. And it was vital that the Government focused on dealing with it to the exclusion of almost all else.
But now that things are, however gingerly, returning to something resembling normality, it’s no less vital that the focus is widened – and starts to include “levelling up”.
Indeed, the economic impact of the pandemic makes such action even more essential.
That’s why this week’s intervention from these MPs is so important. What links the Red Wall constituencies is that they have all fallen far behind London since the 1970s. De- industrialisation and the ever- growing dominance of London as the UK’s economic powerhouse have meant that the biggest wage rises over the past 20 years have all been in
London and its environs – with some of the biggest falls in Yorkshire and the North East.
The Red Wall seats would have previously been prime Labour territory. Average weekly earnings in them are £ 529.25, which is £ 57 less than in other already Conservative constituencies but also £ 25 less than in Labour- held areas.
Average income ( without tax and benefits) in London is now nearly 70 per cent higher than in the rest of the UK, up from 30 per cent higher in 1997.
The 2019 election revealed voters in these seats had become fed up with the false promises offered by Labour. They felt taken for granted and ignored – a factor also behind the Brexit referendum result.
With the Tories led by a man who had, as Mayor of London, a proven track record of reaching out to voters who had never previously supported the party,
they threw off their Labour straitjackets. The Conservatives’ urgent task is to retain their support. If they stick to their promise of levelling up, that will follow. The MPs suggest three measures of success: making sure wages for the bottom half of earners grow faster, reducing unemployment in the areas with the worst rates and helping business employ more people.
AS PART of that, they say that the Treasury should be required to report on the geographic impact of all big tax and spending changes. Those are all obvious and sensible ideas.
It is, of course, in the Tories’ political interest to deliver. With Labour looking increasingly sane under Sir Keir Starmer, the Red Wall could crumble and with that the Tories’ majority.
But this is about more than politics. It’s about doing the right thing. The Tories’ pledges to the Red Wall seats matter to all of us because we should not want to live in a divided nation, where the area in which you happen to be born determines the opportunities you have.
Boris Johnson has a majority that gives him the chance to change Britain for the better. He must use it.
‘ Voters were fed up with the false promises offered by Labour’