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While the beleaguered Tories gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a clear direction exists at all. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. Yet the former leadership did not possess the basic understanding on how to convert the popular slogan on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it argued over what the phrase actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up entailed when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our departmental mantra, and its definition is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we achieve equal access – without removing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by providing chances to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

An additional vital education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, but opportunity is not”, served as a intentional wording, embodying the dual components of a fairness agenda. Initially, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Second, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our market. Therefore, learning and employment were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the societal structure of our country – fostering people’s potential and providing access to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

What did the social mobility agenda become under the previous government? A towns fund overseen from the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was released almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, revenue and in community development. Additionally, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – even though it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of social mobility, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is vital for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to create a feeling of hope about the years ahead is critical. Analysis 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 – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their future than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people view their destiny.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those areas vote for a organization that made that decision? The targeted programme is a single instance of what might have become a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the Tories discovered, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The electorate punished the government for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

At present the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has been transferred to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been discarded. The new government has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is increasingly displacing the struggling Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in the region. It promises that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, different language. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the same fate, each group should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but effective implementation of more equal results is far more challenging. The UK’s chronically poor social mobility 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 little to show after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss improved access repeatedly. However, which party has the political group that has the complete plan on life chances? I see none. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not only for their organization, but, crucially, for a whole country that has never needed equality of opportunity so desperately.