The Conservative Party struck a chord with their commitment to level up the national divide following their landslide election victory of December 2019. Regardless of the politics of the move, you would have to look hard to find anyone disagreeing that something needed to be done about the geographical and economic divisions that exist in our society.

The richest 1% among us increased their share of national wealth by almost a fifth in the decade leading up to the pandemic. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has pointed out that the legacy of the banking crisis and years of austerity left households in a precarious position and the state ill-equipped to act as a safety net. Then covid struck, whereupon eight out of 10 among the lowest 10% earners found themselves either in a shut-down sector or unlikely to be able to do their job from home.

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