Top story: An ‘everything and nothing policy’
Hello, Warren Murray here to help start your day.
Boris Johnson’s plan to “level up” disadvantaged areas of the UK risks becoming an “everything and nothing policy” lacking definition, coordination and planning, according to an all-party group of MPs. They want the government to come forward with coherent proposals “rather than merely a slogan”, and more detail about what communities should expect and how success will be measured. The committee said it was not even clear whether the agenda extended to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland or just covered the regions of England.
“The current available documents show a wide-ranging and disjointed programme of random policies from an obesity strategy, an increase in police officers, to funding on A-roads and the creation of freeports,” the committee said. Speaking in Coventry earlier this month, Johnson set out a vision for locally accountable mayors across England who would be “the yeast that lifts the whole mattress of dough, the magic sauce, the ketchup of…
