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While the beleaguered Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a viable path is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been markedly improved if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Social mobility. But Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the basic understanding on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it discussed what the term actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what levelling up entailed when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It served as our departmental mantra, and its meaning is clear: levelling up is the approach by which we attain equality of opportunity – without removing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that are without.

Essential Principle

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, but opportunity is not”, again was a deliberate expression, representing the dual components of a social mobility strategy. First, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Second, access not provided uniformly by employers or our economy. Therefore, learning and employment were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an mission about the societal structure of our country – supporting people’s potential and connecting them to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was launched a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies repackaged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, fiscal strategy, revenue and in place-making. And, of course, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the only engine of fair chances, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is crucial for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are linked; that if people aspire, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the years ahead is crucial. Analysis by the academic institution at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to students in those communities being up to a significant margin more positive about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their prospects.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its new leader election, in September 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a organization that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what might have become a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Tories found out, breaking the promise of social mobility is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. Voters punished the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Currently the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has been transferred to a opposition party. The old slogan has been cast off. The new government has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is gradually replacing the failing incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an revitalized economy.

For the public, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the similar destiny, the respective organizations should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but actual achievement of more equal results is significantly more difficult. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those working hard in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss equal chances as much as they want. Yet where is the political group that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? I see none. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.