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As the struggling Conservative party gathers in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a road forward remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

It could have been vastly better if real advances had been made on an priority that resonates with people throughout the UK: Levelling up. But Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the slightest idea on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the general election, it argued over what the concept actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up entailed when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the approach by which we attain equality of opportunity – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending options to those that are without.

Essential Principle

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, represented another a deliberate expression, reflecting the dual components of a fairness agenda. Initially, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our economic system. As a result, schools and companies were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an agenda about the societal structure of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes managed by the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was released nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, business, fiscal strategy, taxation and in community development. Additionally, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the only engine of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is vital for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are related; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the years ahead is critical. Analysis by the research body at the university and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future 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 swiftly and beneficially change how people view their future.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its new leader election, in September 2022, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those regions vote for a organization that took that action? This specific initiative is one example of what had the potential to be a revolutionary administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Tories found out, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. Voters punished the government for its incompetence but, primarily, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

At present the responsibility on social mobility and equal chances has passed to a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. Labour has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I was raised in, in the region. It suggests that an industrial past can be reborn into an industrial future.

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

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the same fate, each group should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of more equal results is significantly more difficult. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in occupations with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about fairer opportunities repeatedly. However, which party has the organization that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? I see none. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.