With a PM who appears genuinely shocked that rich people live longer, what hope is there for ‘levelling up’?

Comparing downtrodden Blackpool with the affluent Ribble Valley is comparing chalk with cheese, writes Chris Blackhurst. It’s as if Boris Johnson has stumbled across the difference between wealth and poverty

Pier pressure: behind the seaside fun, Blackpool is a byword for Britain’s social ills (AFP/Getty)

One of the more emotive moments in Boris Johnson’s conference address was when he compared Ribble Valley with Blackpool. “We have one of the most imbalanced societies and lopsided economies of all the richer countries,” he said. “It’s not just that there’s a gap between London and the southeast and the rest of the country, there are 18 gaps within the regions themselves.

“What monkey glands are they applying in Ribble Valley? What royal jelly are they eating that they live seven years longer than the people of Blackpool, only 33 miles away?

“That’s not just a question of social justice, it is an appalling waste of potential – and it’s holding this country back. Because there is no reason why the inhabitants of one part of the country should be geographically fated to be poorer than others.”

Johnson is broadly correct. Lancashire County Council research shows that life expectancy for men in Blackpool is the lowest in England – 74.5 years. But in the Ribble Valley, males can expect to live until they’re 80.9. The life expectancy for women in Blackpool is 79.5, versus 84.5 in the Ribble Valley. He cited the difference as an example of what Johnson means by the need for “levelling up”. Said the prime minister: “Levelling up works for the whole country and is the right and responsible policy.”

It was a straight, easily understood, graphic comparison between A and B, two places not far apart. As is his wont, he trotted out the contrast, then moved quickly on. No explanation was offered, and critically and typically no solution either. It sounded good, though, made him appear as if he really had a grip on the country, that he knew about Blackpool and Ribble Valley.

If Johnson had visited both places properly – not just don his customary high-vis jacket for the cameras and pose with that faraway, look-at-me-I-am-a-visionary gaze, but spend serious time there – he would have realised these aren’t just easily trotted out placenames in his big speech, that he was comparing chalk and cheese.

Clitheroe, looking towards Pendle Hill in Ribble Valley, is one of the most prosperous towns in the country (Getty/iStock)

Blackpool has long fallen on hard times. Far gone are the days when it was the favoured destination of hard-working folks across the north – from the mill towns and cities and the likes of Ribble Valley. Cheap foreign package holidays put paid to that. As a resort it staggers on, but if you needed a byword for Britain’s social ills Blackpool fits the bill. Drugs, long-term unemployed, people subsisting on benefits with no prospect of earning, bad housing, crime, struggling schools, health poverty – you name the problem and Blackpool has it in abundance.

To them can be added, too, weak communications. Those well-off enough to afford a car can use the motorway but the train links to other northern centres are lacking, and HS2, whatever is claimed by the boosterish Johnson and his cheerleaders, is not going to put that right.

Blackpool remains a destination for day trippers, stag and hen parties and budget breaks, but come off the “Golden Mile” along the promenade and walk the back streets, and the town’s charm, such as it is, vanishes. Seaside attractions give way to grim shops and supermarkets flogging stacks of cheap beer, cider and spirits, and takeaways pushing kebabs, chips and pizzas. And fags, lots of fags, to go with easily available heroin and the zombie drug spice.

This is what Johnson could have gone on to say but chose not to or did not bother to find out: eight of the 10 most deprived neighbourhoods in England, according to government figures, are in Blackpool; its local authority area is ranked as the most deprived in England, based on seven measures, including income, health and unemployment; the number of children in care in Blackpool is three times the average; the town has the second highest male suicide rate in England; one in four women in Blackpool smoke during pregnancy.

Nevertheless, come out of Blackpool, head for Preston, and then the Pennines beyond. You might as well be in another country. This is Ribble Valley, rural, beautiful, predominantly middle class, home to Michelin-starred restaurants and smart gastro-pubs. Its centre is Clitheroe, one of the most prosperous towns in the north, in the entire country.

There are social problems here as well, but they are less marked. This is a haven of contentment and of getting on. Children who grow up in Ribble Valley have opportunities laid out in front of them. Its inhabitants, by and large, are better educated, wealthier, employed, residing in higher quality housing, more health conscious and healthier. As Johnson pointed out, they live longer. Ribble Valley sits comfortably in the 20 per cent of least deprived council districts in England.

Far gone are the days when Blackpool was the favoured destination of hard-working folks across the north (Getty)

Listening to Johnson, and it’s not the first time recently he’s pointed to differing life expectancy rates, it’s as if he has stumbled across the difference between wealth and poverty. He appears genuinely shocked that rich people live longer. Perhaps on his gilded ascent he has never come across poor folk before, not at Eton, Oxford, and Bullingdon Club dinners, not from the backs of limousines speeding between Downing Street and Chequers.

As mayor of London, he ventured into some of the capital’s most run-down neighbourhoods, but always with an entourage in attendance, usually wise-cracking and playing up for the cameras. Possibly, he was too busy rehearsing his then mantra of London being open to all, of foreign investors clamouring to get in and spend their cash, of having so many French residents as to make him equivalent to the mayor of a sizeable city in France.

Whatever the reason, now as prime minister, having been elected on a vague promise of levelling up, he is raising wealth and poverty existing cheek by jowl. He could have chosen any number of locations to make the same point; he could have found areas in cities literally side by side where the differences in living standards are stark.

To give him his due, he is at least highlighting it – other leaders have remained silent on the subject. Critically, though, what he’s not doing is saying how he will bridge the divide, how he will eradicate the problem. The obvious solution is to pump money at it, but he doesn’t have much, his room for manoeuvre is tight, his chancellor is not keen – besides, the amount it would take he really does not possess. Take Germany – there, it cost $2 trillion in bringing the downtrodden East to some sort of semblance with West Germany.

So, having offered Blackpool and Ribble Valley as an example of what levelling up means he has not got an answer. Until he does, he will be engaging in nothing more than soundbite, gesture politics. It would be wonderful to report in a few years’ time that Blackpool and Ribble Valley are moving closer together. Don’t hold your breath.