UK's embattled Johnson seeks reset with major economic plan

LONDON (AP) — The British government set out plans Wednesday for a huge shift in power and wealth to left-behind regions of the country, a long-standing promise to the voters who helped put Prime Minister Boris Johnson in office.

Johnson's Conservative government was elected in 2019 on a pledge to “level up” one of Europe’s most regionally unequal countries by improving transport links, infrastructure and economic opportunities in swaths of the country hit by shuttered industries and public funding cuts.

The government fleshed out that promise Wednesday with details of plans to invest in public transport, education, digital connectivity and R&D in poorer regions, mostly in central and northern England, by 2030. It also said more regions will get elected mayors with substantial powers, and derelict industrial sites will be targeted for major regeneration projects.

As yet, though, there are few details of how the ambitious plans will be funded.

Britain has long had deep regional divides, with money and wealth concentrated in London and the south of England, while heavy industry dominated the north. The closure of mines and factories as the U.K. moved from industrial powerhouse to service-based economy in recent decades hit those areas hard. The divide grew wider when Conservative-led governments slashed public spending to curb a ballooning deficit after the 2008 global financial crisis. Poorer areas that were most dependent on state funds suffered the biggest hit.

Former industrial cities in England such as Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, along with Glasgow, Scotland, have done much to reinvent themselves as economic, cultural and creative hotbeds, but smaller towns and cities are still scarred by poverty, poor education and high unemployment.

Michael Gove, the...