Remember levelling up, whereby low-income areas in the Midlands and North would enjoy a greater share of the nation’s wealth? It is pretty hard to square with the government’s policy on releasing the country from lockdown. Rather, policy seems to be construed so as to make sure that the economies of the Midlands and North suffer most.
When Covid-19 was raging in London in the spring, the whole country was forced into lockdown together. People in, say, Wigan were ordered to stay at home, even though there was less circulation of the virus there than in Westminster. But now the virus is a little more active in parts of the Midlands and North than it is in the South, what happens? We have local and regional lockdowns which affect only the former.
Wigan is one of those areas which learned late last night that family gatherings in houses and gardens were to be banned from Midnight.
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