“THE cost of living crisis is over. It is time to move on!” This was the tone of the Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt last week when he said the UK economy was “continuing to prove the doubters wrong”.

He certainly left me in no doubt that the Conservatives are taking us all for fools.

Mr Hunt is the fourth Conservative Chancellor we have had thrust upon us in just 12 months. Like his predecessors he presented a budget detached from the reality of the cost of living crisis.

His backbench MPs, many representing northern “red wall” seats, cheered in celebration as he announced the UK will avoid a recession by a whisker. They should have been stunned into silence by the announcement that their constituents are experiencing the biggest drop in living standards since records began, and that after 13 years of Tory Government, average earnings will remain below the peak seen under Labour. Cheer they might, but the Chancellor confirmed to the British people that the Tories aren’t working for them.

This was unquestionably a ‘Westminster bubble’ budget. Slashing tax for a tiny number of millionaires’ pension pots while ignoring the worries of households in Durham and across the North East.

A week later, damning new figures revealed inflation stubbornly remains in double digits – food prices rising faster than any point since the 1970s. Interest rates have been raised for the 11th time in a row, hiking up mortgages costs again. The Chancellor might call this budget his “plan for growth” but the only thing that’s growing are household bills.

It seems there is no new plan. Rather, the same tired Tories having one last go at their favoured tried and failed method: slash tax at the top and hope for the best. It hasn’t worked for 13 years – it won’t work now.

The Conservatives still think the economy grows from the top down, but Labour knows that we grow from the bottom up, by increasing pay for all. A civilised society isn’t successful just because a tiny number of people have accumulated large sums of money, while others live in poverty.

That’s why the Levelling Up pledge was attractive to many. But four years on, the clock’s ticking for the Tories to prove they meant it. Inequalities between north and south continue to widen, with promises of transformative investment in transport and jobs unfulfilled. The budget could have focussed on combatting regional inequalities, but it ignored them. Perhaps it’s not surprising when reducing poverty isn’t one of the Government’s levelling up missions.

This budget laid bare how meagre the Tories levelling up pledge is. Their millionaire pension giveaway could cost as much as £4bn over five years – the same as the entire Levelling Up Fund budget announced so far.

The Chancellor did remember one token reference to levelling up, though: two Canary Wharf-style low tax investment zones in our region.

But Canary Wharf is a strange model for the chancellor to point to. Not only did it require huge investment in transport and infrastructure – completely lacking in the North East – but Tower Hamlets, where Canary Wharf is based, has the highest child poverty rate in the UK. Surely, we can deliver a better economic model than that?