| Yorkshireman Chris Mason is up and running as the BBC's Political Editor today, with his first big report featuring in a Panorama special that goes out at 8pm tonight. And The Northern Agenda is encouraged to see the subject is one this newsletter has been banging the drum on for months, namely the mammoth task of tackling regional inequality and how the Government decides to spend its money as it pursues the task of 'levelling up'. Conservative Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove tells the programme that the cost-of-living crisis and rising inflation means that for "every pound of government spending is worth a little bit less in a year's time than it was last year". And he adds: "So it is a tough climate. It's tough for everyone. "I think it makes it all the more important that we level up. I think unless we do everything in this [Levelling Up] white paper, unless we stick to those missions, then the cost of living issues that we face at the moment will deepen inequality. It is both much more important and also that little bit more difficult."  BBC Political Editor Chris Mason interviews Michael Gove on Panorama and visits Barnsley
Elsewhere on Panorama Mr Mason, who grew up in the Yorkshire Dales, visits Barnsley to explore how Boris Johnson's 'biggest central domestic mission' is playing out. He spoke to a talented young dancer and artist who is reluctant to stay in the South Yorkshire town because of quality of life issues and a lack of opportunities. The episode also explores an issue looked at by this newsletter, the dispersal of the £1.7bn contained in the first round of the flagship Levelling Up Fund designed to boost opportunities outside the South East. When Panorama sent Freedom Of Information requests to councils in the 100 most deprived areas in England, many of which are in the North, it found that 28 councils had all their bids rejected. This included 18 areas that were on the Government's top priority list, including Knowsley and Blackpool. Meanwhile, 38 councils won all, or some, of the money they requested, and 34 councils did not submit a bid in this round. A second round for the fund will open for applications at the end of May but ex-government economist Nicola Headlam said asking councils to bid against each other was not the right approach. "A beauty contest around who gets the money, that's not really how I would do it," she said. She also said that affluent places could have more resources to write better proposals. Panorama's Fixing Unfair Britain: Can Levelling Up Deliver? is on at 8pm tonight. 
The streets where female life expectancy is lower than in Columbia  Oldham resident Susan, who takes a quick cigarette break after buying shopping for her sister who is coming out of hospital (Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)
The ongoing cost of failing to tackle regional inequality is spelled out starkly in the Manchester Evening News, which highlights how life expectancy for women living in the poorest 10% of areas in England - such as parts of Oldham - is lower than in any other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development country, except Mexico. It means that women like Susan, who spoke to the M.E.N's Sophie Halle-Richards, face a lower life expectancy than their counterparts in Colombia, Latvia and Hungary. On a grey morning in Oldham town centre, Susan is shopping for her sister who is coming out of hospital. She's only 58-years-old but will now require 24-hour care. The mum is also desperately trying to support her youngest son, who lost his girlfriend last year. She was only in her 30s. Now Susan is having to help her son find a new place to live, as he can scarcely afford the £500 rent he and his partner had taken on together. According to the report by the Health Foundation, women like Susan can expect to live on average 78.7 years - significantly below the average of 83.2 years for the whole of England. "I certainly think that statistic is accurate around here," says Susan. She points to her cigarette as she cites smoking, low income, poor diet and general poverty. "I know a lot of people around here who have died prematurely. Every time you turn around someone is in some kind of tragedy." 
A message from BVCA: Private capital's role has been under the microscope recently, but what hasn't been looked at is its contribution to the economy. A landmark new report seeks to change that. The report found that businesses backed by private equity and venture capital delivered £102 billion of GDP and employed 1.9 million workers last year. One of the many businesses that has benefited from private capital investment is Newcells Biotech, which started as a research project in Newcastle University. Find out where else private capital is creating jobs in EY's new report. The final outcome in North's local elections  Our graphic by Lisa Walsh shows the final state of play in the North's local elections. New authorities in Cumbria and North Yorkshire are not included in the seats total
A final analysis of the local elections in the North shows that Labour had a better day than initial results suggested they might on Friday. Despite seeing Hull slip from their grasp to the Liberal Democrats and losing seats in parts of Greater Manchester and Merseyside, in the afternoon Keir Starmer's party had two good results as they took control of Kirklees in West Yorkshire and Rossendale in Lancashire. They also won the only mayoral election as Oliver Coppard was victorious in South Yorkshire. As our graphic shows, Labour won 65% of the 835 council seats contested in the North of England though the number of councillors actually fell by 25, a sign of the large number of seats the party was defending from 2018. The Lib Dems and Greens both made gains while the Conservatives made a net loss. Other interesting election developments include Hartlepool Conservative councillor Gordon Cranney resigning a full 24 hours into his new term of office after it emerged that he had recently pleaded guilty on 28 April to assaulting his wife by beating. And voters in North Tyneside elected a black councillor for the first time in the authority's 48-year history. Labour candidate Josephine Mudzingwa was elected to serve the Benton ward.
There are also now councillors elected to the new authorities in Cumbria and North Yorkshire, which will come into being in a year's time as part of a shake-up of local government in the North's most rural areas. And the political balance of power will be less blue than Tory strategists would have hoped. Cumberland will be run by a Labour administration and Westmorland and Furness by a Liberal Democrat council, while in North Yorkshire the Conservatives barely managed to get a majority. As the councillors on the new shadow authorities settled into their roles, Henri Murison of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership lobbying group urged them to push for devolved powers from the government by forming a combined authority with an elected mayor. He wrote to every councillor: "Devolution is flourishing in some places (South Yorkshire has just elected its second Metro Mayor) while stalling in others. "It is not right that Cumbria or North Yorkshire should miss out on empowered local leadership - nor the government funding which goes hand in hand with it. Metro Mayors are needed for cities, towns, and rural areas alike if we are serious about building a truly productive, prosperous Northern Powerhouse."
Durham revelations ramp up 'beergate' pressure on Starmer  Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer walking past reporters as he arrives at Carlisle train station (Pic: PA)
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has faced another weekend of questions over what did or did not happen at a Durham constituency office during lockdown last year. On Friday, police confirmed that they were reinvestigating claims an evening event attended by Sir Keir along with senior party figures and activists may have broken social distancing regulations. It made for awkward scenes in Carlisle, where he was visiting to celebrate Cumbrian local election success as the announcement dropped. Sir Keir, a former director of public prosecutions, told reporters on Saturday that there "was no party and no breach of rules", writes Westminster Editor Dan O'Donoghue. But the party is yet to comment on reports claiming that staff were drunk at the event in the constituency office of City of Durham MP Mary Foy. And an internal memorandum for the trip, obtained by the Mail on Sunday, showed that dinner was prearranged. Sir Keir - who has previously called for Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak to resign over attending Downing Street lockdown events - himself drank beer and ate curry at the event. The Conservatives have accused Sir Keir of double standards. But The Yorkshire Post today reports that local election campaign messages were sent by Sir Keir's social media accounts about a visit to Hull on the night of 'Beergate' - potentially backing up his contention his work continued that night after 10pm.
'I almost buckled': Crime tsar reflects on tumultuous first year in post  Steve Turner alongside Policing Minister Kit Malthouse and neighbourhood police officers (Image: Ian Cooper/Teesside Live)
Steve Turner has become one of highest-profile police and crime commissioners in the country since his election nearly a year ago, though possibly not for the reasons he'd hoped. The Conservative has been subject to a number of referrals to the Independent Office for Police Conduct since taking up the post as Cleveland's crime commissioner and within only a few months of taking office it was confirmed Chief Constable Richard Lewis was leaving. His main functions are to draw up a strategic crime plan for the area and hold to scrutiny the Cleveland force via its chief constable, now Mark Webster. In an interview with Local Democracy Reporter Stuart Arnold, Mr Turner says his team "have achieved some fantastic things in my first 12 months and I am really proud of that". He said the complaints made against him, including one relating to a police caution he received in the 1990s, had "been less of a distraction at work as I've been able to compartmentalise it and have a really strong, supportive team". But he said: "It has been a massive strain personally in terms of the impact on my family, friends and that has been really difficult. The pressure that has put me and my family under has been enormous and there have been times when we have almost buckled."
Is careers education keeping up with fast-changing tech world?  Manchester Tech Festival co-founder Naomi Timperley
Manchester is described as Europe's "fastest growing tech city" with an economy worth an estimated £5 billion employing 58,000 people in more than 10,000 businesses. But if the city - and others in the North - are going to continue growing a "talent pipeline" is needed to help give young people in Greater Manchester the skills they need to thrive in the sector. Naomi Timperley, co-founder of the Manchester Tech Festival, tells The Northern Agenda podcast this week that her efforts to reach out to the workforce of the future include going into her local high school in Sale to tell students about types of jobs available in tech. She told us: "And what was really apparent is that all the roles that I was talking about, I think there's maybe a chasm in careers education, some of the careers educators perhaps don't know about different roles that are happening. "Let's also not forget, if we go back 12 years, or even 20 years, there are jobs now that didn't exist 20 years ago, and it's going to be the same in five years in 10 years time. "And it's really important that people from the tech sector go into schools and colleges and talk about the different roles and talk about the opportunities and the skills that you need."
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