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While the existentially challenged Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. There is uncertainty if a clear direction remains open. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an priority that is important for people across the country: Social mobility. But the former leadership hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the 2019 election, it discussed what the term even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility entailed when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. It served as our guiding principle, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we achieve fair chances – not through reducing opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

The other key education department term we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, yet chances are not”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our market. As a result, learning and employment were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an agenda about the social fabric of our country – supporting people’s potential and linking them with prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up become under the Tory administration? Regional development money administered out of the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was launched almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw current strategies relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, taxation and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a university system that has become a target for leaders across parties – even though it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the primary source of fair chances, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is essential for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For any government, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is important. Analysis by the academic institution at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to students in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people perceive their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a party that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what could have been a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that chance was totally misused. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the Tories discovered, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The electorate punished the administration for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the mandate on equal opportunity and fair access has been taken up by a Labour government. The previous terminology has been abandoned. The new government has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is increasingly displacing the failing Tories, Reform UK, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I was raised in, in the region. It suggests that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Same issue, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the identical outcome, each group should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. Britain’s persistently low social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. However, which party has the party that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not only for their party, but, crucially, for a whole country that has desperately requires fair chances so desperately.