A daily editor marked Liz Truss’s first day as Prime Minister by penning an open letter urging her to devolve power to the regions.

The Yorkshire Post splashed on the new Tory leader’s imminent accession to Number 10 today while expressing doubts that she would continue with her predecessor Boris Johnson’s ‘levelling-up’ agenda designed to reduce disparities within regions.

It prompted editor James Mitchinson to write an open letter to Ms Truss urging her to let the regions themselves take responsibility for levelling-up in a new devolution drive.

James claimed that, under Mr Johnson, levelling-up had become a “unicorn policy” which had achieved nothing and that local leadership was the solution, rather than the problem.

 

Wrote James: “Ms Truss, you follow in the footsteps of Boris Johnson, a Prime Minister whose time in office has all but destroyed any trust that previously existed between the electorate and those who govern.

“The people of this country are fed up of being taken for fools: ordinary men and women up and down the country feel powerless, voiceless and in many cases hopeless. Yes, even hope in some communities has been taken away.

“We do not believe the Westminster elite and its caravan of Whitehall sycophants cares a jot about we who live and work in the regions. ‘Levelling Up’ to date has proved a unicorn policy that exists only in the rhetoric of those who wish to deceive us.

“That is why we are calling on you, Prime Minister, to entrust the Levelling Up policy to the very regions it purports to serve. Every challenge the nation faces can be made more easily surmountable if you succeed with Devolution proper.

“By engaging energetic, capable, accountable leaders at a local level across the country, Ms Truss, you have in your hands the opportunity to leave a Premier’s legacy like no other.

“The permanent structural handover of powers and pounds to people who actually care about the place they call home and who will strain every sinew, day and night, to provide opportunities for people locally. From culture to social care, transport to education, innovations to creativity: let us lead where Westminster repeatedly fails.

“Quite simply, there is too much power in the centre – a core that has well and truly proven itself to be rotten – and not nearly enough knowledge of any material substance.

“Prime Minister, the time for genuine political reform, reform that will begin to rebuild our battered nation, is best placed with our local leaders who stand ready to own and create your legacy on your behalf. We are the solution, not – as we have for so long been cast – the problem.”

Meanwhile the Post’s parent company National World ran a series of front pages across some of its other regional dailies with a simple message to ‘hear the voice’ of people on their patches.

Other regional dailies to splash on the new PM today included the Northern Echo and the Bolton News, and these are also pictured below.