The Northern Agenda: Why Levelling Up could disappear with Boris Johnson

Keep up to date with all the big politics stories in the North with the daily Northern Agenda newsletter.

You can receive the Northern Agenda newsletter direct to your inbox every week day by signing up right here.

Here is today's Northern Agenda:

By ROB PARSONS - July 5 2022

In a political universe where Westminster hadn't descended into Lord of the Flies-style anarchy, your Northern Agenda today would likely have focused on the hugely important and potentially explosive issue of whether government would approve a new coal mine for steel production in Cumbria.

An announcement was due today but late last night the man due to make it, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, was sacked by Boris Johnson as he clung on to power, limpet-like and deluded, at 10 Downing Street.

At the start of a morning when Mr Johnson finally accepted the inevitable and resigned, as Tory leader after ministers and MPs made clear his position was untenable, Mr Gove's Levelling Up Department was down to a rump of three Ministers with everyone else having quit.

As well as no Cumbrian coal mine announcement it meant there was no Minister to represent the Government as its flagship Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill reached committee stage in the Commons and confusion over whether local leaders would be able to submit bids to the £4.8bn Levelling Up fund to help their communities.

In fact, with a host of departments losing nearly all their Ministers and the business of government ground to a halt, it remained unclear this morning when a host of huge issues that matter to the North - devolution, fracking, high speed rail - would be picked up again.

Mr Johnson is due to give a statement to the nation at around 1pm today announcing his