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While the existentially challenged Tories meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. These are challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out so different if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that is important for people nationwide: Levelling up. But the previous administration hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our departmental mantra, and its meaning is straightforward: social mobility is the means by which we attain fair chances – not by taking prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding options to those that are without.

Essential Principle

The other key DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, however access isn’t”, represented another a intentional wording, embodying the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. First, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were crucial to achieving better life chances. This was an mission about the community framework of our country – supporting people’s potential and connecting them to opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

How did the social mobility agenda turn into under the previous government? Regional development money managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was launched almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in investment, enterprise, financial planning, taxation and in local regeneration. Moreover, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is essential for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are related; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the years ahead is critical. Analysis by the research body at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people perceive their future.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a party that took that action? This specific initiative is a single instance of what might have become a game-changing administration strategy on levelling up, but that chance was totally misused. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Tories learned, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any government can make. The electorate punished the government for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

At present the mandate on social mobility and equality of opportunity has passed to a opposition party. The old slogan has been cast off. The current administration has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is gradually replacing the failing Tories, the challenger, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I was raised in, in the region. It suggests that an former economic strength can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the similar destiny, both these parties should understand the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but actual achievement of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. The UK’s persistently low life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. Yet where is the party that has the complete plan on life chances? I see none. The first to achieve this, wins. Not only for themselves, but, significantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so urgently.