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While the existentially challenged Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a viable path remains open. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that matters to people across the country: Equal opportunity. But Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the slightest idea on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it argued over what the term truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It was our departmental mantra, and its meaning is unambiguous: social mobility is the method by which we realize fair chances – without removing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, but opportunity is not”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an mission about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and linking them with chances.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money overseen from the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was launched nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, economic policy, taxation and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a university system that has become a target for leaders across parties – even though it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the sole mechanism of social mobility, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is vital for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For any government, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is crucial. Research by the research body at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to students in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their life ahead than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people view their future.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in that period, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a political group that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is a single instance of what had the potential to be a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that chance was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can generate optimism and ambition. In contrast, as the Conservatives discovered, breaking the promise of social mobility is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The public penalized the government for its failure but, above all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

At present the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has passed to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. The new government has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the struggling Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I was raised in, in the region. It suggests that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an industrial future.

For voters, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to escape the same fate, both these parties should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor life chances remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in employment with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss improved access however much they like. Yet where is the party that has the complete plan on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.