We were told about golden triangles, chewing gum, magic sauce and even the need for more football pitches.
But a smorgasbord of promises offered by Boris Johnson to end the North-South divide will do little to quench the appetites of Northerners desperately hungry for a policy feast.
“It’s an outrage that a man in Blackpool has an average of 10 years less on this planet than someone growing up in Hampshire,” Mr Johnson announced before bemoaning the quality of the coffee in the old East Germany.
But such dire statistics on Northerners’ life expectancy, delivered by a Prime Minister who seemed almost startled at the discovery while reading them out in his long-awaited levelling up speech, are nothing new.
Northern politicians, health chiefs and local council leaders have been relaying them to the Government all throughout the decade of austerity and the coronavirus pandemic.
At times through, Mr Johnson appeared not to be talking directly to them but to the voters in southern seats such as Chesham and Amersham, where the Conservatives were defeated in a recent by-election.
“We don’t want to decapitate the tall poppies. We don’t think you can make the poor parts of the country richer by making the rich parts poorer,” the Prime Minister said.
And amid the pledges of £640bn on roads and rail, housing and clean power, there was no mention of the North’s flagship levelling up project, Northern Powerhouse Rail.
After those three words so often uttered by George Osborne were also missing from Rishi Sunak’s spring budget, there is now a growing feeling they are being scratched out of the Conservatives’ lexicon.
But what should local leaders do to put forward their case as Mr Johnson promised to “re-write the rulebook” on devolution by taking it from the cities and into the countryside?
“Come to us with a plan for strong accountable leadership,” he said, “and we will give you the tools to change your area for the better.”
It will come as news to Northern leaders, who have been knocking on the door of 10 Downing Street now for a very long time.
