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As the existentially challenged Conservative party meets in its conference city 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 tough times for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Levelling up. Yet Boris Johnson’s government lacked the slightest idea on how to transform the popular slogan on levelling up into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it discussed what the term truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. It served as our guiding principle, and its purpose is clear: levelling up is the method by which we attain equal access – without removing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by providing opportunities to those that are without.

The Core Concept

The other key education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, however access isn’t”, represented another a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our economic system. Thus, learning and employment were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an priority about the social fabric of our country – supporting people’s potential and connecting them to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the DLUHC. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A white paper was launched almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in investment, enterprise, economic policy, tax and in place-making. Moreover, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for leaders across parties – even though it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the primary source of fair chances, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is crucial for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are connected; that if people aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the years ahead is critical. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their prospects than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those communities vote for a organization that did that? The opportunity areas policy is a single instance of what could have been a game-changing Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the Conservatives found out, failing to deliver of social mobility is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The electorate punished the government for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

At present the baton on life chances and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a new administration. The previous terminology has been discarded. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is increasingly displacing the failing Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It claims that an former economic strength can reincarnate into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, different language. But – as yet – no results.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the same fate, both these parties should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of more equal results is much harder. The UK’s endemically weak social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in occupations with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any actual expectation their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about equal chances as much as they want. However, which party has the political group that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not just for their party, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has never needed equal access so desperately.