It starts with communication. The better the communication, the clearer the message – and the easier it is for businesses and the whole of society to understand the purpose, targets and methods to achieve what is required.

Communication plays a critical role in leadership and, when done correctly, it has an impact not just in terms of followers but in driving those followers to try to create a world that works for everyone. Just look at the likes of Dr Martin Luther King and his pivotal role in the Civil Rights movement in the USA. Or Emmeline Pankhurst, who is recognised for her crucial contribution in achieving women’s rights.

The leaders had a clear message but also responded to and listened to those who they were leading. Communication is not just a one-way system, but that seems to be the recent attitude, and not just regionally or nationally but globally.

People are tired of not being heard or seen. Maybe worse still is the feeling that when they are seen, it is through a skewed lens, a perception that has been passed down through the generations and leadership, getting distorted along the way like a whisper passed down a row of people.

Boris Johnson's record on levelling up has been questioned.

Have the leaders of today forgotten how to listen? This type of behaviour existed long before the pandemic but the pandemic managed to create some leaders who are just refusing to listen because “they know best” and we, the people, must abide by them “for the greater good”.

The question is what is the greater good and where does it lie? We can of course turn our heads in current times to China and their zero Covid tolerance practices and making excuses such as, well, “it’s a different culture.”

Then let us look to our neighbours in Europe. Many of the countries such as France and Italy are angry and losing, or have lost, confidence in their leadership. The Fracture France Survey taken recently found that 58 per cent were dissatisfied with France, while 89 per cent believed they lived in a violent society.

It is a warning for us of what may lie ahead.

Back home the discontent has started on wider scale with services such as rail, postal and now the NHS talking about or taking strike action. There is more than just discontent. There is frustration, pain, the lack of being heard and seen.

Here in Yorkshire, I ask are we being seen for who we are and what we need? Yorkshire and the North needs true, undiluted levelling up.

I don’t want it in drips, likes scraps thrown to a stray dog, and be told to be content. I want true levelling up, allowing the North and Yorkshire to become even more of a greater power hub.

A key theme of the Conservatives’ 2019 election campaign was Boris Johnson calling levelling up the “defining mission of his Government”.

Levelling up has been on the agenda for a long time - we just never see it actually being delivered. There are some small victories, such as the East Riding of Yorkshire which is due to received £12m of levelling up fund through three government schemes, but this is to replace the European funding – it’s not a loss but I’m not sure if it is a true win.

Communication is where leaders listen and deliver on old promises. If not, have we reached the saturation point in Yorkshire?

Rashmi Dubé is a Partner at gunnercooke

Levelling up letdown part of political communication failures: Rashmi Dubé