When Boris Johnson addresses his party faithful today, I would be happy if he did no more than repeat the promises that he made the last time he gave a major speech in Manchester. That was just over two years ago, in front of the evocative backdrop of Stephenson’s Rocket, and it came just days after he had entered Downing Street. To be honest, I could have written much of it myself. In the context of today’s confusion over what “levelling up” means, his words are well worth revisiting. Back then, the prime minister was possessed of that clarity and urgency that sometimes comes over politicians when they are new in office. He seemed to speak more as the former mayor of London than the country’s new leader. His vision for “levelling up” felt clear – now it is as clear as mud. London had been transformed over the past two decades, he told assembled political and business leaders from across the north of England, and he would now do exactly the same for us. “I want to be the prime minister who does with Northern Powerhouse Rail what we did for Crossrail in London”, he said, making a specific pledge to get cracking immediately on the Leeds to Manchester section of the new line. That hasn’t happened and I have to say I would be surprised if the chancellor would give clearance to the prime minister to repeat the same pledge today. The storm clouds are gathering over Manchester Piccadilly when it comes to rail investment. All the rumours are that Northern Powerhouse Rail won’t be a new line like Crossrail, but instead is being downgraded to an enhancement of existing lines. We read that the eastern leg of HS2 into Yorkshire is about to be chopped altogether. I hope I am wrong, but I fear I am not. Perhaps there will be better news on intra-city public transport? The 2019 speech was crystal clear on this. “I will begin, as a matter of urgency, the transformation of local bus services – starting here today in Manchester,” he said. “I will work with the mayor on his plans to deliver a London-style bus system. I think we can see the first results, here in Greater Manchester, within a few months.” We haven’t seen those results yet. But, to be fair, the government has made more progress on buses. Alongside other local areas, we have been invited to bid for capital and revenue funding. But will they provide enough to give us London-level frequency of services and London-level fares? In the capital, a single bus journey costs £1.55 and people can spend no more than £4.65 no matter how many bus journeys they take in a given day. Here in Greater Manchester, a single bus journey can cost as much as the London cap. I have already taken the decision to bring our buses back under public control and to integrate them with our trams to create the Bee Network. On our own it will take longer to increase the routes and cut the fares, but in partnership with central government we can go further and faster and deliver by May 2024 the levelled-up public transport system that Greater Manchester needs. If the prime minister were to commit today to London-level bus fares for Greater Manchester and elsewhere in England, it would certainly be noticed by voters. Finally, “levelling up” would mean something. That’s the prime minister’s task today – to take a phrase that is at risk of signifying everything and nothing and bring clarity back to the core mission of his government. The big question is whether he can square that with his chancellor. This is now the faultline at the heart of this government – between a prime minister who has raised expectations of major spending in neglected places up and down the country, and a chancellor who in his own conference speech was hinting at a new era of austerity. How this tension is resolved will determine the fate of the Conservatives at the next election in the “red wall” seats. If spending is so tight, the only answer is for it to be refocused on the areas of real need. The pandemic has shone a brutal spotlight on where those places are – and they are largely in the north. This is why George Osborne was right seven years ago when he promised that, at long last, the north of England would move from the back to the front of the queue for public investment. That is where this debate about regional inequality began. But, in the intervening years, other areas have challenged this prioritisation. We have moved from the specific promise of a “northern powerhouse” to the altogether more ambiguous language of “levelling up”. And now, if the post-pandemic pot of money is to be reduced, as the chancellor is suggesting, then the levelling-up largesse will be spread so thin that no one will notice it. We will find out what levelling up actually means when the government delivers its spending review later this month. But today we should get a sense of where the prime minister’s thinking is going. Greater Manchester has tried to provide him with a solution. We have put a big positive offer to the government in the form of a Levelling Up Deal for our city-region, linking zero-carbon public transport to new and retrofitted zero-carbon housing and creating thousands of good jobs in the process. We would get the funding and powers to deliver those things and, in return, the government would be able to hold us to account. If Johnson were to stand up in Manchester today and say that he will be striking that deal, it would move us all beyond the debates of the recent past and help the country come back together after the pandemic. How about it, prime minister? Andy Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester. He served as the Labour MP for Leigh from 2001 until 2017