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As the beleaguered Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a road forward remains open. We are in tough times for a political party that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an agenda that matters to people nationwide: Equal opportunity. Yet the previous administration hadn’t got the first clue on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the phrase truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility signified when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. This became our guiding principle, and its meaning is clear: levelling up is the method by which we attain equality of opportunity – without removing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by providing chances to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

The other key ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, however access isn’t”, represented another a deliberate expression, embodying the two halves of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our economic system. Therefore, learning and employment were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an mission about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and providing access to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the Tory administration? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A white paper was released nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in capital, enterprise, financial planning, revenue and in place-making. Moreover, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – although it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for young working-class people, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the only engine of social mobility, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is crucial for our country to thrive. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are related; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For any government, being able to create a sense of optimism about the tomorrow is crucial. Studies by the academic institution at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their prospects than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their future.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a organization that took that action? The targeted programme is a single instance of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on levelling up, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. In contrast, as the Conservatives discovered, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The electorate held accountable the government for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Now the mandate on social mobility and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a Labour government. The old slogan has been abandoned. The new government has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is increasingly displacing the struggling Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I was raised in, in the region. It claims that an former economic strength can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the same fate, the respective organizations should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in employment with few results after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their next generation will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss fairer opportunities however much they like. However, which party has the organization that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs equal access so urgently.