Getting down to levelling up

It is often assumed that Britain’s Conservatives are on the same journey as the US Republicans, shifting their voter base and political priorities downwards from the comfortable to the coping. There are certainly overlaps but the Republican shift seems driven more by culture, even ethnicity, than it is here. Indeed, the difference can be summed up in those two words Boris Johnson keeps repeating: levelling up.

Trumpism, the erratic billionaire populism, did not seek to level. Leaning left on economics was briefly a plausible direction in the Steve Bannon era. But it never materialised. By contrast, the Tory tilt towards Brexitey, just-about-managing Britain, appears to be led as much by economics as by commitments to national sovereignty and mainstream values.

But the levelling up agenda is not Conservative in the sense that conservatism has generally been understood for the past 40 years. A serious levelling up strategy is not compatible with rigorous free market economics, balanced budgets, and a small state.