The UK levelling up strategy and changing the spatial economy

The United Kingdom is one of the most spatially unequal Western countries. There have been continuing policy efforts to address this issue: the latest was a 'levelling' up strategy by the previous Conservative government. At the time of writing a new Labour government has dismissed the strategy as a slogan but the problem remains. The paper examines the detail of the Conservative's levelling up policy and the theory underpinning it. It queries its basic premise that the problems of localities can be addressed in isolation. The paper argues that promoting mainly low-productivity jobs would not have instigated fundamental change.