Kent has emerged as a big winner in the levelling up bonanza but not everyone has cashed in, as KentOnline political editor Paul Francis reports...

No-one can question that the sums are significant. The announcement of a huge injection of cash to get investment projects in some of the county’s economic blackspots under way goes some way to deliver on a pledge made by Boris Johnson to iron out regional inequalities across the UK.

But it has also resurrected the political argument that the levelling up agenda has been shifted away from traditional Labour strongholds to Conservative-supporting areas of the south east, like Kent.

Michael Gove, the minister in charge, clearly anticipated this line of attack about the announcement and rebutted the charges by pointing out that the winners based on the amount of money per person were authorities in the north.

But there remains a suspicion among some that the government has rewarded areas that are party strongholds or are potentially electorally vulnerable.

The misgivings about the way money has been allocated has its origins in comments made by Rishi Sunak when he was campaigning in the county to become leader.

A video clip leaked to the New Statesman from a hustings meeting in Tunbridge Wells recorded him telling activists how, as Chancellor, he had begun to to change the the funding formula set by Labour - to stop money from being, in his words, “shovelled up north.”

He contended that in doing so, deserving areas like Tunbridge Wells would not lose out.

Perhaps inevitably he was reminded of these comments by the opposition parties. But for those six projects in Kent that had their bids approved, it is not an argument that will bother them unduly.

Where there are mutterings of discontent, it is around the way the process works, requiring councils to enter a bidding war dubbed by Labour as a political “Hunger Games” - pitting communities against one another.

The criticism has not only come from Labour. Andy Street the Conservative elected mayor of West Midlands called for an end to Whitehall's "broken begging bowl culture".

The dissenting voices in Kent have been muted. Medway council leader Alan Jarrett issued a diplomatic statement after the authority failed to secure government approval for its bid. While it was a disappointing outcome, the council had been “mindful that securing funding from Round 2 would be more challenging”, partly because of its success in the first round of levelling up.

Gravesham council leader John Burden was more blunt. He said he was at a loss to understand the government’s thinking “especially when I look at the other areas of Kent that have been successful and the fact that for both funding rounds Gravesham was identified as a priority one area for Levelling Up, and yet here we are with nothing to show for it”.

With a promise by the government to have a third round of the scheme, councils may be wary of being too outspoken for fear of losing out.

There is another issue - the claim that this top-down policy sits uneasily with the government’s rhetoric of devolution of powers to councils.

Government has stripped back funding to councils by hundreds of millions of pounds in recent years. Since 2010, £13bn has been taken out of local council budgets - compared with £2bn that was doled out in levelling up funding yesterday.

Kent County Council - which was undoubtedly among the winners - has lost £810m in government grant money and has been direct in warning that the government must help it out if it is to avoid bankruptcy.

The government seems to prefer the shiny baubles of the money tree - but it comes at a cost to councils trying desperately to balance their books.