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As the existentially challenged Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a road forward is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out so different if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that matters to people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. However the previous administration lacked the basic understanding on how to convert the popular slogan on social mobility into policy reality. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it debated what the term even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up entailed when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It was our departmental mantra, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the method by which we achieve equal access – not by taking chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing chances to those that are without.

The Core Concept

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, but opportunity is not”, served as a purposeful phrase, representing the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our economic system. Therefore, schools and companies were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an priority about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and providing access to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund overseen from the DLUHC. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was launched almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in funding, business, fiscal strategy, tax and in community development. Additionally, in learning, including a university system that has become a target for elected officials – although it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the only engine of social mobility, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is essential for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are linked; that if people aim high, they can achieve. For any government, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the future is important. Studies by the research body at the university and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to students in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their future than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people perceive their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a organization that took that action? This specific initiative is a clear case of what had the potential to be a transformative Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that chance was totally misused. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the ruling party discovered, breaking the promise of fair chances is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The electorate penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Now the mandate on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the hapless Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I grew up in, in the region. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For voters, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, new terminology. But – as yet – no results.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the same fate, the respective organizations should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but effective implementation of more equal results is far more challenging. Britain’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in employment with few results after the living expenses are met, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their children will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss improved access however much they like. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a whole country that has never needed fair chances so urgently.