THE man tasked by Michael Gove with fashioning the Tories’ “levelling up” strategy has been hired by Labour to do the same thing.
Andy Haldane, a former chief economist at the Bank of England, has been brought in to run Labour’s plan for “regional growth”, Lisa Nandy told the Guardian.
Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary under Labour leader Keir Starmer, also appeared at her party’s conference in Liverpool alongside a Conservative MP.
Danny Kruger, the Eton-educated son of TV presenter Prue Leith and the Tory MP for Devizes, previously served as political secretary to Boris Johnson during his time as prime minister.
He appeared alongside Nandy at an event run by the right-wing think tank Onward.
The think-tank’s website says: “Onward develops bold and practical ideas for the next generation of centre-right thinkers and leaders.”
Nandy told the Guardian: “They came to this conference because they can see that levelling up under the Tories is dead. It is the only answer for the country and Labour is where it’s at.
“That gave me a lot of confidence that the prize isn’t just within our reach – that better country that we want to build – but it’s absolutely within our reach.”
The Labour MP’s comments echo those made by her party’s leader in July.
Giving a speech to activists in Liverpool, Starmer said: “Just because the Tory commitment to levelling up is dead, doesn’t mean the idea of levelling up is dead – Labour will take it on.”
Starmer also told the crowd that he had brought in former prime minister Gordon Brown to help at look at “new forms of economic devolution”.
It is unclear if this is the same body of work as the regional growth strategy being overseen by Haldane.
In July, Gove was sacked by Johnson from his levelling up brief amidst a mass of ministerial resignations that led to the now-former prime minister's eventual downfall.
Labour has reached a new high in the polls after Liz Truss’s new UK Government oversaw the value of the pound hitting historic lows against the US dollar.
Truss has also brought in tax cuts for the highest earners and an end to a cap on bankers’ bonuses, policies which are overwhelmingly unpopular, even with Conservative voters.
