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While the existentially challenged Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a clear direction remains open. These are tough times for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an priority that is important for people throughout the UK: Levelling up. Yet the previous administration hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility signified when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It served as our departmental mantra, and its purpose is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we achieve equality of opportunity – not by taking opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by providing options 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 intentional wording, embodying the two parts of a fairness agenda. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economy. Thus, education and business were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an mission about the societal structure of our country – investing in people’s potential and linking them with chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund administered out of the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was launched almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in investment, commerce, fiscal strategy, taxation and in place-making. Additionally, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the only engine of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is crucial for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are linked; that if people aspire, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is important. Studies by the research body at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those areas vote for a organization that took that action? This specific initiative is a single instance of what could have been a game-changing Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the ruling party found out, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the biggest blunder any government can make. The public penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

Now the mandate on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a new administration. The previous terminology has been cast off. The current administration has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is gradually replacing the hapless incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I was raised in, in the region. It claims that an former economic strength can revive into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, the respective organizations should learn from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. The UK’s endemically weak life chances remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in occupations with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss fairer opportunities as much as they want. However, which party has the organization that has the complete plan on social mobility? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not only for themselves, but, significantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs equal access so desperately.