Election haunted by failure to level up in Yorkshire and the North over 14 years - The Yorkshire Post says

Mr Sunak has been a North Yorkshire MP since 2015 and says that serving the area has taught him a great deal – from the resilience of farmers, to the service of military families and the community spirit of local volunteers.

As for Sir Keir, he harks back to his time studying law in Leeds as the first person in his family to go to university – a period which coincided with the Miners’ Strike which had a huge impact here. Sir Keir says: “Whilst I grew up on the Surrey-Kent border, in many ways I was formed in Yorkshire. What I learnt from the hardworking, fair-playing, straight-talking people here is a deep part of who I am and what I believe.”

But while such warm words from both are a positive reflection on this region, the astute voters of Yorkshire will be more keenly attuned to their parties’ concrete actions when deciding who to vote for this Thursday.

While this newspaper will not be endorsing any party at this General Election, The Yorkshire Post does today set out its own manifesto for Yorkshire – setting out ten policy areas from transport and energy to farming and devolution where the next Government could make a real and genuine difference to people’s lives.

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The simple fact is that despite the current Government’s promises of levelling up, the country remains too London-centric in a way that is highly damaging for many reasons.

As Professor Sir Michael Marmot pointed out during a recent talk in Sheffield, outside of London the UK is economically as poor as the US's poorest state, Mississippi.

Since 2010, analysis has shown people’s health has deteriorated, health inequalities have widened, and the North-South health gap has increased.

As our manifesto highlights, creating a fairer playing field in this country should be seen in a positive light; it is not about dragging London and the South-East down but merely improving the life chances and prospects of people living in regions such as Yorkshire.

Polling indicates that a substantial Labour majority appears all-but-inevitable once the votes are counted later this week. Indeed, the fact that there are even doubts over whether Mr Sunak can hold onto his constituency, previously one of the safest Conservative seats in the country, says it all.

There are many reasons for the current dire polling for the Tories, some of which does have to be laid at Mr Sunak’s door as a failure to deliver on key promises have come back to bite him.

But the simple reality is that anyone who took over a governing party which had followed Boris Johnson being forced out in disgrace with Liz Truss's short but disastrous tenure was always going to face an uphill struggle to convince voters a fifth successive term in power was merited.

The squeeze on living costs and the perception that public services are simply not working as they should has also left more voters ready for a change.

Part of the trouble for the Conservatives is that whatever the merits of various proposals in their manifesto, they have little answer to why such policies haven’t been introduced already in their 14 years in power.

Mr Sunak says that even if the Conservatives do lose the election, he will remain as an MP if he holds onto his constituency seat. If the polls prove accurate, he will have few Tory colleagues alongside him.