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As the beleaguered Conservative party meets in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a viable path remains open. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been vastly better if real advances had been made on an policy focus that matters to people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. However the former leadership lacked the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the term actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. This became our core mission, and its definition is straightforward: social mobility is the method by which we realize fair chances – without removing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending chances to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

The other key ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, again was a intentional wording, reflecting the two parts of a social mobility strategy. Initially, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our market. Thus, education and business were crucial to achieving better life chances. This was an mission about the community framework of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the previous government? Local investment schemes administered out of the DLUHC. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was released almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in funding, business, economic policy, tax and in local regeneration. And, of course, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the only engine of social mobility, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is vital for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are connected; that if people aspire, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is critical. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their prospects than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people view their future.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a organization that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what could have been a game-changing Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that possibility was totally misused. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of fair chances is the most expensive error any political party can make. The electorate held accountable the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the responsibility on social mobility and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the struggling Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I come from, in the region. It suggests that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the similar destiny, each group should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. The UK’s chronically poor life chances remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in employment with little to show after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss fairer opportunities repeatedly. But where is the organization that has the complete plan on life chances? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not only for their organization, but, significantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equal access so urgently.