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While the struggling Conservative party gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a viable path exists at all. We are in tough times for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

It could have been so different if real advances had been made on an agenda that matters to people nationwide: Levelling up. Yet the former leadership lacked the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it argued over what the phrase truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility meant when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we achieve equal access – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, however access isn’t”, again was a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two parts of a fairness agenda. First, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by employers or our market. As a result, learning and employment were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an priority about the societal structure of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to chances.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda turn into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the DLUHC. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was published almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in funding, commerce, financial planning, tax and in local regeneration. Moreover, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is vital for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is crucial. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the university 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 youth in those areas being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

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 regions vote for a organization that did that? This specific initiative is a single instance of what had the potential to be a revolutionary administration strategy on levelling up, but that possibility was totally misused. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the Tories learned, breaking the promise of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. Voters punished the administration for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

At present the responsibility on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been discarded. Labour has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is gradually replacing the hapless incumbents, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It suggests that an industrial past can be reborn into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, different language. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the similar destiny, each group should learn from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but actual achievement of more equal results is much harder. Britain’s chronically poor social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any actual expectation their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. Yet where is the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not just for themselves, but, significantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equal access so desperately.