Boris Johnson called "levelling up" the "defining mission" of his government but this week’s autumn statement may see this noble aim pushed into the long grass.
The plan was to give people and communities that felt they have been left behind a chance to catch up, with heavy investment planned in transport and infrastructure.
But dire economic forecasts have put all capital spending projects under review as chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, attempts to balance the books, leaving the levelling up agenda under threat.
READ: Speculation mounts as Hunt fine tunes Autumn Statement
The biggest ticket item that could be axed appears to be the northern rail scheme, Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), which was a conservative manifesto promise in the 2019 election.
Last week business secretary Grant Shapps suggested that the plan will revert to the watered down version delivered in the Integrated Rail Plan.
“There wasn’t really much point in going and blasting new tunnels through the Pennines”, anyway, he commented.
The full cost of the NPR would have been £39bn against a £17.2bn for the integrated version.
READ: Autumn Statement – what to expect and what it could mean for households, companies and investors
HS2 is another much discussed project with mixed messages from the government as to whether it faces cuts.
Industry experts pointed out the initial touted cost of £42.5bn will be significantly higher when inflation is taken into account.
At the end of October, housing secretary Michael Gove hinted that HS2 will be reviewed and that the “significant investment” in the high-speed line could be curtailed.
But the Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd have effusively said that there are no plans to derail the project.
The head of the National Infrastructure Commission, Sir John Armitt, said cutting back on the HS2 rail route would be "silly."
"I think you've got massive investment, which has happened in Birmingham ahead of HS2 - it just shows what can happen” he added.
Other projects under threat are East West Rail (EWR), a new line to link Oxford and Cambridge, the Lower Thames Crossing and the A 303 Stonehenge Tunnel.
There was also speculation, since denied, that the government could scrap plans to build a new nuclear power plant in Suffolk, Sizewell C.
Cutting capital spending is seen as an easy win to fill the fiscal black hole but Arnitt said: “It's so important that the government doesn't flip flop, it sticks to its ambition, it sticks to its policies, so that the private sector will bring in a lot of capital, which creates jobs and opportunity.”
What does this mean for levelling up? Thursday’s speech from Hunt could well prove a defining point but the feeling is that something must give for the sums to add up and cutting an investment project here or there is more palatable electorally as it is not felt directly in a taxpayer’s pocket.
Despite the original lofty ambitions levelling up may well prove to have been overtaken by, as Harold Macmillan would say: 'Events, dear boy, events.'