The Northern Agenda Laudable

Ahead of the General Election on July 4th, we’re taking a look at one of the key policies from the 2019 Conservative manifesto. 

Levelling up promised to boost Britain’s “left behind” areas, and helped Boris Johnson storm to victory as voters in former Labour heartlands turned to the Tories in droves. 

You can find out more by listening to our episode from April 2022, titled “Levelling up: what it really means for the north”

But have the Conservatives actually managed to deliver on their promise since then? The North in Numbers takes over the podcast this week, with Annie Gouk speaking to local leaders, policy experts and academics to find out how it’s going.
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This week Rob Parsons joins 13,000 (mostly blue suit-wearing) delegates from the business and political worlds at a major property conference in Leeds - the UK's Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum.
​The likes of Angela Rayner and Alastair Campbell were among the speakers at the three-day event at Leeds' Royal Armouries - which saw hectic networking amid the torrential downpours as local leaders pitched for investment to get major projects off the ground.
It was an event that showed how much the North's politicians need private investment to make their local areas thrive. And Rob talks over some of the highlights with Alistair Houghton, editor of the Business Live website, and Manchester Local Democracy Reporter Ethan Davies.
Also listen out to hear about a fascinating new book about Manchester, a city whose recent economic growth and gleaming skyscrapers attract envious glances from many parts of the North, even if they wouldn't admit it publicly.
Brian Groom, author of the best-selling 'Northerners', talks about his latest offering 'Made In Manchester: A People’s History of the City that Shaped the Modern World'.
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Most of us spend our days with a mobile phone practically glued to our hand - in fact you may well be listening to this podcast on it right now. And it's becoming more and more common for children to have a smart phone, some even before they start at secondary school.
But there are more and more people who are terrified at what the ubiquity of smart phones and social media is doing to our children's minds, their mental health and their ability to learn.
And one of the politicians articulating those fears most vocally is an MP in South Yorkshire, Miriam Cates, who this week led a debate at Westminster calling on the Government to take urgent action before it's too late.
Rob Parsons speaks to her and also a former Yorkshire headteacher whose school introduced an effective ban on smart phones because of what it was doing to students' behaviour. 
And he chats to Local Democracy Reporter Dan Holland about one of the more interesting developments in Northern politics this week, namely the relationship between civic and business leaders in the North East of England and the oil-rich Gulf state of Saudi Arabia.
We know Manchester's booming economy has been achieved thanks in large part to massive private investment encouraged by city leaders, including the Abu Dhabi royal family who now own Manchester City Football Club. But is something similar on the verge of happening in the football-mad city of Newcastle - and why are many in the North opposed to it?
The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.
You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/
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We're a week on from the local and mayoral elections and the dust is still settling on a set of results which dealt another major blow to Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives.

And it was the election of metro mayors - the political figureheads for big regions like the North East, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire - which made most of the headlines.

But while most Westminster pundits - and Rishi Sunak himself, are preoccupied with what these results mean for the upcoming General Election, there's a lot less attention being paid to the mayors themselves. Who are they, what are their policies and why are people voting for them, if they bother to vote at all? And do they really know how to run their regions better than Westminster?

This week as the new mayors got back to work after the elections Rob Parsons speaks to one of them, South Yorkshire's Oliver Coppard, about why he's prioritising transport in his second term. 

And Rob gets the bigger picture with three brilliant guests:

Jen Williams, Northern Correspondent for the Financial Times, who wrote a great piece last week about how the mayoral elections mark a milestone for English devolution and has taken a particular interest in the affairs of Tees Valley Ben Houchen. 

Gill Morris, executive chair of Devo Inflect, the UK's leading devolution public affairs agency. 

Professor Katy Shaw from Northumbria University is one of the experts who helped write Gordon Brown's commission on the UK's future, setting out plans for sweeping constitutional change, which Labour leader Keir Starmer has promised to implement.


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Rob Parsons reports from a​ sports hall in the town of Thornaby-on-Tees - where he's witnessed perhaps the only bright spot for Rishi Sunak in what ​w​as a miserable local and mayoral election night for his Conservative Party.

​T​he Tories ​look to be on course to lose 500 local election seats in what could be their worst showing in 40 years.​ They were thrashed in the Blackpool South by-election and even managed to lose the mayoral race in Rishi Sunak's backyard in North Yorkshire.

​But there was a silver lining in the form of ​Ben Houchen, described by many as the poster-boy for Conservatism in the North of England, who was re-elected mayor of the Tees Valley region but saw his majority over Labour dramatically cut, ​securing almost 82,000 votes compared with the 63,000 votes received by Labour’s Chris McEwan.  

Rob hears directly from Lord Houchen after his victory and watches a remarkable confrontation between the mayor and one of his main critics, journalist Richard Brooks of Private Eye.

There's also voice notes from local journalists Joseph Timan in Greater Manchester and Susan Newton at the Blackpool South by-election.
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This week Rob Parsons focuses on the parts of the country where millions of us live - the so-called coalfield or ex-mining communities - and find out what the future holds for them.

There's a new report out this week from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust setting out how the areas whose miners used to power industrial Britain are still lagging behind the big cities when it comes to jobs. But crucially they have a vision for how they can catch up, and Rob speaks to Andy Lock from the charity to hear what needs to happen.

Also, there's a week to go until large parts of the North go to the polls on May 2 and there's plenty on the line - not just in places like the Tees Valley and North East which are electing metro mayors but also towns and cities where control of local councils is at stake.

But where are the most interesting races in the North and how much do they matter? Rob is joined by Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive of the Local Government Information Unit - a not-for-profit organisation which produces an annual report on the local council elections to watch.
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