Innovation theorist challenged to walk the talk on ‘levelling up’

Is there a clear definition of "levelling up"? I'd have thought this was the place to start (but I'm not a politician). Is it the point where everyone sees John Lewis furniture as a "nightmare" or is it getting "the north of England" 10% nearer to the average income in the South East (more achievable, but a rubbish political slogan).

Sadly, the scale of the problem (deep-seated, long-run spatial and structural inequalities in the UK economy) continues to dwarf the level of funding (and ambition) in these piecemeal initiatives. 'Levelling up' is a cheap political slogan and a pipe-dream.

We should scrap the London weighting given to Universities in the capital and only support new capital expenditure for Universities outside the Golden Triangle. There needs to be Less in London. A University helps bring regeneration to locations that do not have one through the spending power of students via their student loans. Graduates are more likely to stay and work in the University towns and cities where they studied, creating further wealth. Separating the geographical UK Political, Commercial, Cultural and Tourist capitals would also help achieve a fairer distribution of wealth. Currently, London provides all four. Even the USA has Washington and New York.

Low productivity is a red herring. if "productivity = the value created per hour of work" then the nature of financial services means that huge "value" (ie profits) can be created with a few key strokes on a computer. Hence the high productivity in the city of London compared to say a car plant in the Midlands. The ultimate in productivity is a fully automated factory, with perhaps couple of low pay security guards to ensure nobody enters the plant. Fantastic for productivity lousy for job creation. The factory owner keeps all the profits and becomes the next Jeff Bezos/Elon Musk, the local job centre is packed with ex factory workers now on benefits.