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As the struggling Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a clear direction is available. These are tough times for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an priority that matters to people across the country: Social mobility. But the former leadership lacked the basic understanding on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it discussed what the concept truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up meant when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. This became our departmental mantra, and its meaning is clear: levelling up is the means by which we realize equal access – not through reducing prospects away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding options to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, yet chances are not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, embodying the two parts of a social mobility strategy. First, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an agenda about the community framework of our country – investing in human talent and connecting them to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda become under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A white paper was launched nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw current strategies relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in funding, business, financial planning, revenue and in local regeneration. Additionally, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – although it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Maybe the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is essential for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the years ahead is important. Analysis by the academic institution at the university and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a party that took that action? This specific initiative is a single instance of what had the potential to be a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that possibility was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Tories learned, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any leadership can make. Voters penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the baton on social mobility and fair access has been transferred to a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the identical outcome, both these parties should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that fair chance language is one thing, but actual achievement of more equal results is significantly more difficult. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention fairer opportunities repeatedly. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I see none. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not only for their organization, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has never needed equality of opportunity so desperately.