PM to argue his ‘levelling-up’ project is a ‘win-win’ as he sets out post-pandemic vision

Published

3 years ago

July 14, 2021

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Boris Johnson will argue his “levelling-up” project is a “win-win” and will not mean “robbing Peter to pay Paul” as he sets out his post-pandemic vision for the UK.

In a speech in the West Midlands on Thursday, the prime minister will indicate his flagship programme will benefit the whole country, not just the Conservatives’ new parliamentary constituencies in the north and midlands.

It comes after the Tories lost the previously-safe home counties seat of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats last month, and some in the party warned ‘levelling up’ must not come at the expense of the party’s southern heartlands.

Mr Johnson is expected to say the programme is not a “jam-spreading operation”.

Yet he will criticise previous governments for focussing investment on “areas where house prices are already sky high and where transport is already congested”.

He will say: “By turbo charging those areas – especially in London and the South East – you drive prices even higher and you force more and more people to move to the same expensive areas and the result is that their commutes are longer, their trains are more crowded, they have less time with their kids.

“They worry at the same time that the younger generation won’t be able to get a home and that their leafy suburb or village will be engulfed by new housing development but without the infrastructure to go with it.

But the prime minister is also expected to argue: “We don’t want to decapitate the tall poppies. We don’t think you can make the poor parts of the country richer by making the rich parts poorer.”

Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s deputy leader said: “Boris Johnson has overseen the worst death toll in Europe and the greatest hit to any major economy. Two years as prime minister and all we have is this empty husk of a speech that shows he has no plan for the future of our country other than pitching people and towns against each other.

“Unlike Labour, he has no plan to buy, make and sell more in Britain. He has no jobs promise for young people. And he has no recovery plan for our children. Britain deserves better.”

The prime minister will also set out policies to regenerate high streets, including making pavement licences for pubs and cafes permanent, and extending takeaway pints for a further 12 months.

The government is due to publish a white paper with detailed policy proposals in the autumn.

Politics

Bitfinex database breach ‘seems fake,’ says CTO

Published

14 hours ago

May 5, 2024

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<div>Bitfinex database breach 'seems fake,' says CTO</div>

Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino explained that if the hacking group was telling the truth, they would have asked for a ransom, but he “couldn’t find any request.”

Politics

Labour taking ‘Tory crown jewel’ feels like a momentum shift

Published

16 hours ago

May 5, 2024

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Labour taking 'Tory crown jewel' feels like a momentum shift

It was a wafer-thin victory, but a huge win.

The symbolism of Labour taking the West Midlands mayor, a jewel in the Tory crown, could be felt in the room as Labour activists gathered in Birmingham to celebrate the win with their new mayor Richard Parker and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

There are moments on election journeys when the momentum shifts – and this win felt like one of them.

“We humbly asked [the voters] to put their trust and confidence in a changed Labour Party and they did. And that is a significant piece of political history that we’ve made here today,” said Sir Keir at his victory rally.

“So the message out of these elections, the last now the last stop before we go into that general election, is that the country wants change.

“I hope the prime minister is listening and gives the opportunity to the country to vote as a whole in a general election as soon as possible.”

This win gave them the boost that was missing when they won the Blackpool South by-election on a massive 26-point swing, but then failed to pick up the hundreds of council seats they were chasing.

This win, on just 1,508 votes or 0.25 per cent of the vote, was a body blow for a Conservative party that believed they could just about cling on. Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, is now the last Tory standing.

For Labour, then a moment to bookmark.

Just as Boris Johnson’s Hartlepool by-election win in 2021 was a low point for Sir Keir – he told me this week that he considered resigning over the loss because he thought it showed he was the barrier to Labour’s recovery – this too will feel devastating not just for Andy Street but for the PM too.

Labour has beaten him in a street fight. He’s bloodied with Sir Keir now emboldened.

“This was the one result we really needed,” said one senior Labour figure. “It’s been our top focus for the past week and symbolically a very important win.”

And Labour needed the boost, because, as Professor Michael Thrasher pointed out in his Sky News’ national vote share projection calculated from the local election results, Sir Keir was not picking up the sort of vote share that Tony Blair was winning in the run-up to the 1997 Labour landslide.

His latest calculation of a 35% vote share for Labour and 26% for the Tories, put Sir Keir winning a general election but short of a majority.

What the West Midlands mayoral win did for Sir Keir was to give him a clear narrative that he is coming for the Tories and will do what he needs to take them down.

It raises inevitable questions about what is next for Rishi Sunak. The prime minister had nowhere to go today, not one win to celebrate. The worst performance in council elections in 40 years, was already pretty much as bad as it gets before the loss of Andy Street. The former Conservative mayor was magnanimous towards the prime minister, saying the loss was his alone.

But colleagues will not be so generous. One former cabinet minister said this loss was “devastating”. “We’re done and there’s no appetite to move against him,” said the senior MP. Many Tories tell me they are now resigned to defeat and believe Mr Sunak and his team needed to own it, rather than the rest of the party.

The coming days might be bumpy, the mood will be stony. But Tories tell me not much will actually change for them.

For Sir Keir, he now needs to sell not the changed Labour Party, but his vision for changing the country. The West Mids mayor’s win was dazzling, but it could have so easily gone the other way. And as Mr Sunak fights to survive, Labour still has to fight hard to win.