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While the struggling Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a clear direction is available. These are difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out vastly better if real advances had been made on an agenda that resonates with people throughout the UK: Social mobility. But Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the first clue on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its purpose is unambiguous: levelling up is the approach by which we realize fair chances – not through reducing prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by extending options to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

An additional vital education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, yet chances are not”, again was a deliberate expression, representing the two parts of a fairness agenda. First, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Second, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our market. Thus, education and business were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an priority about the societal structure of our country – investing in human talent and linking them with prospects.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda turn into under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was launched almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in investment, commerce, financial planning, taxation and in local regeneration. Additionally, in schooling, including a university system that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the sole mechanism of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is vital for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are connected; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the future is critical. Analysis by the research body at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to students in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people view their future.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the ruling party terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those regions vote for a organization that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what had the potential to be a game-changing administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the Conservatives learned, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The public held accountable the administration for its incompetence but, primarily, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Now the mandate on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has passed to a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. Labour has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is gradually replacing the struggling Tories, the alternative party, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I was raised in, in the region. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the similar destiny, the respective organizations should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but successful delivery of more equal results is much harder. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about equal chances however much they like. But where is the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.