LEVELLING up is a brilliant political slogan. It has confirmed what many people in the North-East already felt, that there has been an unfair spending of money and creating of opportunity, and it has created the impression that the Conservative Party is going to do something about it.

We so agree with the Prime Minister’s line heard in Hartlepool and repeated yesterday: “You will find flair and imagination and enthusiasm and genius distributed evenly across this country while opportunity is not.”

But “levelling up” seems to mean all things to all people: the Redcar MP sees it as a way of improving secondary schools while the Sedgefield MP sees it as a way of opening a new railway station.

And, as yet, there are no metrics by which we can judge it. Should we judge it on how many jobs it creates or how it improves people’s life expectancy?

There have, though, been starts made and yesterday’s Queen’s Speech – in which social care was once again not properly addressed – gave a few more hints at what practical differences it may make.

A White Paper is promised to explain more later this year, and that is what we are desperate for: detail.