Gove evokes Thatcher in praise of levelling up

LEVELLING Up minister Michael Gove yesterday promised to harness the “spirit” of Thatcherism to help the north of England, with Labour promising to go much further in devolving power out of London.

Mr Gove cited the “active” government of Margaret Thatcher and her 1980s transformation of the London docklands as inspiration for levelling up – the plan to narrow economic and social disparities between the North and South.

The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was speaking at the Convention of the North, a major gathering of political and business leaders in Manchester.

Labour’s Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up minister, told the convention the UK was in a “national malaise” and its political system “broken”, that had to “change or die”.

She promised a significant expansion of devolution under Labour, with local authorities, not Whitehall, deciding how government money is spent – Town Halls having powers over housing, transport, energy, childcare, skills, employment support and training.

Earlier, Mr Gove summarised the Government’s Levelling Up agenda, speaking of the “enduring and entrenched geographical and social divide” – while calling London a “priceless asset” of the economy.

He cited Mrs Thatcher’s administration in the 1980s, a decade marked by the closure of coal mines and industrial strife in the North, as a model for elements of levelling up. He said: “The experience of successful economic transformation demonstrates that growth is not secured by absent government but by active government.

“A government that plays a strategic role, irrigating the soil for growth as Mrs Thatcher did, specifically in the Docklands. When the Thatcher government took office in 1979, London’s docklands were a derelict economic desert.

“The Government created the environment, the private sector created the jobs. London Docklands today is an economic success story.”