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As the existentially challenged Tories convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a clear direction exists at all. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if real advances had been made on an policy focus that matters to people across the country: Equal opportunity. However the previous administration hadn’t got the first clue on how to transform the popular slogan on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it argued over what the term actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up signified 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 life chances. It served as our departmental mantra, and its purpose is clear: social mobility is the means by which we realize fair chances – without removing prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding options to those that are without.

Essential Principle

The other key education department term we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, but opportunity is not”, again was a deliberate expression, embodying the two parts of a fairness agenda. To begin with, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Second, access not provided uniformly by employers or our economic system. Therefore, education and business were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an priority about the social fabric of our country – supporting individual capabilities and providing access to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up turn into under the previous government? Local investment schemes administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was launched almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in capital, business, fiscal strategy, tax and in community development. Moreover, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the primary source of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is vital for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the future is critical. Research by the research body at the university and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people view their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a party that did that? This specific initiative is a single instance of what had the potential to be a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that chance was totally misused. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives discovered, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any government can make. The public punished the government for its incompetence but, above all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the baton on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a Labour government. The old slogan has been abandoned. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the struggling incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an former economic strength can be reborn into an industrial future.

For voters, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Identical problem, new terminology. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the identical outcome, the respective organizations should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but actual achievement of more equal results is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in employment with little to show after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can mention equal chances repeatedly. However, which party has the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not just for themselves, but, crucially, for a whole country that has urgently needs equal access so desperately.