Talk:Levelling-up policy of the Conservative government

Appropriate tone/NPOV

Firstly, thanks for creating the article. I added a criticism section to try and give it more balanced coverage, and added 2 problem tags:

1. POV: The lead sentence regurgitates the stated aims of the policy without context or detachment, which is inappropriate for wikivoice. It needs to be rewritten so that it's just the facts; political phrasing should be contained within quote marks, if it must be included. I'm also unsure whether it's accurate to call the "levelling up" agenda/issue/funding pot a fully-fledged "policy" – do the sources use this term?
2. Over-quotation: There are also too many quotes from Boris Johnson. We're an encyclopedia, not the government's PR mouthpiece! The over quotation feeds into the POV issue, as it results in a non-factual presentation of the topic. Every politician will say their policies are great and going to change the world.

I'm also concerned about whether this is sufficiently notability for a stand-alone article, but there's a fair amount of media coverage so perhaps it's fine? Jr8825 • Talk 23:54, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree with a lot of your sentiments. The problem I found was that a lot of the potential cites did not seem to cover the topic very well, in large part because the policy is not defined in any detail, and pre-white paper. But this is a major policy and difficult to understand beyond superficially, so I thought well worth creating an article to help understanding - a regional policy that does not simply use incentives to move major new developments from affluent to poorer areas seems fairly novel and a bit hard to grasp. I did set about, for now, essentially just recording what the claims/aims the govt was making for the policy in a fairly concise way, so readers could quickly get a better understanding of the claimed aim, and have a benchmark to compare against what emerges. The lack of very good WP:RS explains, as you note, rather more extensive use of quotes than normal - at this stage I was trying to capture accurately what they are claiming. I do view it as a work in progress, and rather expected many of the quotes to be dropped when we have something more substantial like the white paper. I'll take another look at the quotes and consider dropping some now. Rwendland (talk) 08:24, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Jr8825. Do you think the recent changes are enough to (at least temporarily) remove the hat Multiple issues? I think your criticism section balances my attempt to explain govt claims/aims to reasonably address the POV issue. I reduced the large Quote to help a bit on that, and hopefully after the Spending Review on Wed there will be new material for more substance to replace some more quotes. Rwendland (talk) 11:22, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

@Rwendland: I've replaced the tag with a lead rewrite tag, since that's the most obvious issue remaining. I still have my reservations about the number of direct quotes in "The levelling up agenda" section and I think we can write it in a more detached tone – it currently sounds a bit like a press release to me. If I manage to find the time I'll try and tweak some of the sentences, but I don't know when that'll be! Jr8825 • Talk 13:03, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

I've had an attempt at editing this - mostly cutting down on the size of the quotations. Let me know if this works and I will remove the concern box BillyDee (talk) 13:00, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

White paper (wp) etc

Wp makes ref to middle ages Florence as example. How is that valid? East / west German reunification started 1990, still going, cost £1.7 trillion. Where is UK govs guesstimate of cost? How long will it take at £5 billion a year? I mean just hs2 at £100 billion would take 20 years. German reunification 340 years. As well no real future plan in wp. If wfh (& poss 4 day week) reduces commute, pollution, transport expansion.. Where is that in wp? If wfh is a thing.. That affects cities, transport, housing, shops (wfh and online shopping). There's no prioritisation of mobile / broadband. No mention starlink / one Web for instance for not spots. Also no comparison with other countries.. Japan, South Korea etc specific to fibre or mobile. Also no mention previous attempts (fails?) at levelling up.. Helseline mentions attempts in 1990s.. And part failure due to local politicians (losing power, jobs etc). Bbc had podcast discussing levelling up. What levelling up was tried under Labour govs? 92.40.196.34 (talk) 14:03, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

> The above is something of a political rant. However, to bring the topic back to the merger. I support merging the White Paper article into this main article. While the White Paper has received a lot of media attention due to its delay and Levelling Up being a flagship policy, I don't think the document will be a big deal in an of itself. If the Beeching Reports (which arguably have had a bigger impact on UK than this policy document will) are part of a wider article on the Beeching Cuts, I think this is an appropriate precedent to follow BillyDee (talk) 10:33, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Jr8825 • Talk 11:15, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 7 September 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus seems to be that the title should reflect the policy continuing to persist after Boris Johnson's own tenure and thus should be moved elsewhere ASAP. Another RM can be held over which qualifiers are better. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 15:43, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

---

Levelling-up policy of the Boris Johnson government → Levelling-up policy of the British government – The levelling-up policy is being continued by the new prime minister Liz Truss and another levelling-up secretary has been appointed in her government. ThatRandomGuy1 (talk) 11:51, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Agree it needs to be updated, although I'd prefer simply "Levelling-up". It's simpler and less officious, given that the "policy" has so far been rather nebulous and ill-defined, at some points not much more than a talking point. Jr8825 • Talk 12:30, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Will "Levelling-up policy of the British government" stand the test of time once this is history and no longer current govt policy? I'm quite doubtful not identifying it with the Boris Johnson government is good for the long run, he was the main proponent so I don't think leaving be is that bad.

If we do change, I think we should take the opportunity to drop the hyphen in "Levelling-up". Not only would that match the govt Dept name and white paper usage, RS now rarely use the hyphen - of our cites only 3 use hyphen. That then raises the question should we use "Levelling Up" as in the Dept name, quite a lot of our cites do, 13 "Levelling Up" compared to 8 "Levelling up" suggest we should. Rwendland (talk) 16:09, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

• SUPPORT the move. The policy is clearly extended beyond the former Boris Johnson ministry, as explicitly stated by the new Prime Minister Liz Truss in PM Question's on 7 Sep. N2e (talk) 17:59, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 6 January 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved per consensus. (non-admin closure) ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 16:56, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

---

Levelling-up policy of the British government → Levelling up in the United Kingdom – I suggest another move of this article, this time to "Levelling up in the United Kingdom". The "Origins" section of the article and the recent (relative to the previous move) announcement that Labour would also pursue a levelling up policy programme suggests that support for the concept extends beyond the current Levelling Up policy made by the Conservatives under their manifesto and by the Levelling Up white paper. This would future-proof the article, allowing it to extend beyond the policy of Johnson's, Truss' and Sunak's administrations. It would also have the benefit of aligning the spelling of levelling up with most primary and secondary sources (without the hyphen). [1][2][3][4][5] Jèrriais janne (talk) 19:31, 6 January 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. Colonestarrice (talk) 16:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

I also wish to judge the request against Wikipedia policies. I think this follows the 5 characteristics for good article titles listed at Wikipedia:Article titles. I think it meets the recognisability, naturalness and precision criteria to the same extent as the current title. It meets concision better. And it is more consistent with articles on political issues in the UK: e.g. Separatism in the United Kingdom, Climate change in the United Kingdom, Homelessness in the United Kingdom.

However, given the disambiguation page Levelling up only contains links to items relating to Levelling Up, bar one link to the article experience points, referring to levelling up in video games, this article could also be moved to Levelling up, with a hatnote which references the use in the context of experience points. That would remove the somewhat irrelevant "in the United Kingdom". Jèrriais janne (talk) 19:45, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I would not say that "Levelling up" in this context is the primary topic of "Levelling up".--Eldomtom2 (talk) 12:54, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree. It should be moved to Levelling up. MRSC (talk) 17:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

What should be moved to Levelling up? I'm saying that this article shouldn't be moved there.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 16:35, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. I see absolutely no need for a move. The current title is perfectly clear and unambiguous. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:32, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, the politics seems a more significant aspect of it than the country, if we're trying to be WP:CONCISE. It's not something that's happening by itself in the UK, and Labour seem to be using the term at a distance rather than adopting it as a neutral one. I'd suggest Levelling-up (government policy) or Levelling-up (politics). --Belbury (talk) 14:48, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't think it's necessary to move the article. As far as I know, the United Kingdom is the only country to have a "levelling-up" policy. Other countries have had similar policies but none of these were named "levelling-up", so I don't see why we should move it to Levelling up in the United Kingdom. The other articles (Climate change in the United Kingdom, Homelessness in the United Kingdom, etc) focus on worldwide policies and issues and how they are dealt with/applied in the United Kingdom. Levelling-up is only a policy/issue in the UK, so the current article title is fine as it is. If other countries do adopt their own "levelling-up" policies under the "levelling-up" title then I would agree with this move, but until then I don't think its necessary. ThatRandomGuy1 (talk) 20:20, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. As pointed out by ThatRandomGuy1 above, levelling up is a term that is only used within the United Kingdom (at least as far as government policy is concerned), so specifying that the article is about "Levelling up in the United Kingdom" seems a bit superfluous. As for the concern that the article title is not "future-proof", it is, as should a future Labour government pursue a levelling up policy programme, it would still be the "levelling-up policy of the British government" as a Labour-leader becoming PM would make them the leader of the British government, and their levelling up policy will become the "levelling-up policy of the British government", just as the current Conservative government's policy is the current "levelling-up policy of the British government". - Willsteve2000 (talk) 03:27, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support Seems like a perfectly reasonable proposal to me. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 13:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.