Boosterism and belonging: ‘pride in place’ and the levelling-up agenda

Abstract

One of the most telling criticisms of Boris Johnson’s manifesto commitment to ‘level up every part of the United Kingdom’ (Conservative Party, 2019) is that it was almost impossible to explain what it meant. The Levelling Up White Paper (HM Government, 2022) is a 297-page riposte to that accusation. It is a riposte, though, that continues to raise questions about exactly what the government is seeking to achieve – questions that have been complicated even further by the selection and subsequent defenestration of Liz Truss as Johnson's successor in September 2022, and the onset of a new wave of fiscal austerity.