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While the beleaguered Conservative party meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a clear direction exists at all. These are difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out so different if concrete steps had been made on an priority that resonates with people throughout the UK: Levelling up. But the previous administration did not possess the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its meaning is clear: social mobility is the approach by which we achieve equal access – not through reducing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding chances to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

The other key DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, yet chances are not”, represented another a deliberate expression, embodying the two halves of a social mobility strategy. Initially, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our economy. As a result, learning and employment were crucial to achieving better life chances. This was an mission about the social fabric of our country – investing in individual capabilities and linking them with opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the DLUHC. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was released nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in investment, business, economic policy, tax and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the only engine of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is essential for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are related; that if people aim high, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is critical. Studies by the academic institution at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations 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 feel about their future.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a party that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is a single instance of what could have been a revolutionary administration strategy on social mobility, but that possibility was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the ruling party found out, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. Voters held accountable the administration for its incompetence but, above all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the baton on social mobility and fair access has passed to a new administration. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is increasingly displacing the failing Tories, the challenger, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in my hometown. It claims that an former economic strength can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, new terminology. But – as yet – no results.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the identical outcome, both these parties should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that fair chance language is one thing, but actual achievement of improved opportunities is much harder. The UK’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in occupations with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about fairer opportunities as much as they want. Yet where is the political group that has the complete plan on life chances? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for their party, but, crucially, for a complete society that has never needed equal access so desperately.