MICHAEL Gove’s white paper isn’t about “levelling up” - it’s a vain attempt to appease voters in the north of England and save Boris Johnson’s skin.

The 300-page document makes laborious reading and most mentions of devolution or extending powers are discussed in relation to English local authorities – that is of course unless it is to criticise the Scottish Government’s “centralisation” of powers.

The policy paper – supposedly the UK Government’s “defining mission” – rambles through a list of the largest cities in the world – from Jericho in 7000 BC to Tokyo in 2000 – to how many patents are filed in each area of the UK, colour coded in a map of blues and reds of course.

It’s convoluted, long and devoid of substance all at once – but what does it mean for Scotland?

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We dredged through the details of the conveniently timed paper that Gove himself reportedly described as “s**t” to find out.

Most of it relates to issues already devolved in Scotland such as transport, education, health, housing. Let’s be clear, this isn’t about “levelling up” Scotland with the rest of the UK. A quick word search of the document makes the point vividly: England is mentioned 388 times, Wales 153 times, Northern Ireland 142 and Scotland 131. Bear in mind, a lot of this is grouped together as “Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland” peppered throughout the paper.

You only have to take a quick glance at the details of the Levelling Up Fund to back this up – of £4.8bn assigned to the policy kitty, “at least £800 million will be set aside for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland”. That’s just over 16% of the total for three out of four nations, and don’t be fooled by the language. The Levelling Up Prospectus said this cash would be available for devolved nations from 2021-22 to 2024-25, whilst the white paper appears to insinuate that this will only be over the period of 2024-25.

It’s evident that the unique Scottish political landscape was not considered in this paper – as Gove’s staffers picked out “nuclear power” as a potential employment opportunity in Scotland amid the move to net zero.

The Scottish Government is against new nuclear – this has been the SNP policy for decades – and we just shut one of only two nuclear power stations in the country.

Both Nicola Sturgeon and Keir Starmer described the details of the report as “re-hashing” existing policies and funding commitments. It’s difficult to find anything new among the thousands of words of waffle.

It describes opening the Queen Elizabeth House in Edinburgh – which opened in March 2020 – as if it hasn’t yet happened, along with the relocation of senior civil service roles to Glasgow and Edinburgh, announced in March 2021.

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Although furious Tory former minister Steve Baker dubbed the plans “socialist”, they are anything but. As usual, the Tories are expecting the private sector to do the heavy lifting, and make multiple references to “supporting the private sector”. There is absolutely no mention of workers or employment rights, and a vague commitment to raise the National Living Wage to £9.50 per hour, when that will immediately be overridden by the hike in inflation and National Insurance contributions, to name just a couple of elements.

Instead it harps on about people having “pride in place” and the creation of a new Office of Place. You know they’re just picking names out of a hat now.

And what does this vague, picked from The Thick Of It policy basket mean? Just what it says on the tin. More pride in their local area and high streets. The goal for this is to improve “pride” in all areas across the UK, 2030 is the key date for the 12 “missions” set out in this paper – and Johnson will be hoping that this will keep his backbench rebellious MPs from sending letters of no confidence to the 1922 committee.

This is about the red wall and Tories keeping their jobs, if it was about the devolved nations then there would simply be more detail and more commitments. To put it simply, this white paper isn’t going to do what it says on the tin, and the Tories know it.