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While the existentially challenged Tories gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a viable path remains open. These are challenging circumstances for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been markedly improved if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that is important for people throughout the UK: Social mobility. But Boris Johnson’s government lacked the first clue on how to transform the trendy talk on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it discussed what the concept actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. This became our core mission, and its purpose is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we attain fair chances – not by taking prospects away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that lack them.

The Core Concept

The other key ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, but opportunity is not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two parts of a social mobility strategy. Initially, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Second, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our market. Therefore, education and business were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an agenda about the community framework of our country – investing in individual capabilities and providing access to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes managed by the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was released nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw current strategies rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in funding, business, economic policy, taxation and in community development. Moreover, in learning, including a university system that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – even though it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the primary source of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is crucial for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are connected; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the future is important. Analysis by the research body at the university and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their prospects than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people view their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in that period, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a political group that did that? The targeted programme is one example of what had the potential to be a transformative Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. In contrast, as the Conservatives learned, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the costliest mistake any government can make. Voters punished the leadership for its incompetence but, above all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

At present the responsibility on social mobility and equality of opportunity has passed to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been cast off. The current administration has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the struggling incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I was raised in, in my hometown. It promises that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to escape the same fate, each group should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. The UK’s chronically poor social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with young people 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 individuals nationwide without any real hope their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can mention improved access repeatedly. However, which party has the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not just for their organization, but, significantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so desperately.