So the Tory Party seem to be doing a U-turn as regards their pledge to move numbers of civil service personnel from London to Birmingham and Newcastle as part of their much vaunted "levelling up" program. Don't know how much real "levelling up" such a move would have achieved, but at least it would have been a step in the right direction away from London-centric power.

The thing is, did anyone really believe that "levelling up" was anything more than empty rhetoric at best coming out of the mouths of people like Boris and his privileged cronies? Still, it'll be yet more ammunition they have handed over to Starmer and will certainly p iss off their own midland/northern MPs facing the so called "red wall".