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While the existentially challenged Tories convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a road forward exists at all. These are challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that is important for people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However Boris Johnson’s government lacked the slightest idea on how to turn the popular slogan on levelling up into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it argued over what the term even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. It was our departmental mantra, and its meaning is straightforward: social mobility is the approach by which we achieve equal access – not by taking prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding chances to those that are without.

Essential Principle

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, represented another a intentional wording, reflecting the two halves of a social mobility strategy. First, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Second, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our market. As a result, education and business were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an mission about the social fabric of our country – fostering people’s potential and connecting them to prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up turn into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money overseen from the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was published a significant period after the leadership change, which saw current strategies rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in investment, business, financial planning, taxation and in local regeneration. Additionally, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the only engine of social mobility, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is vital for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are connected; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For any government, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the years ahead is important. Analysis by the research body at the university and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to students in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more positive about their life ahead than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people view their future.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a political group that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what could have been a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that possibility was totally misused. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the Conservatives found out, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The public penalized the administration for its incompetence but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Now the mandate on social mobility and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. Labour has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can reincarnate into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the similar destiny, both these parties should understand the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that fair chance language is one thing, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those working hard in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss improved access however much they like. Yet where is the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not only for their organization, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has never needed equality of opportunity so urgently.