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As the beleaguered Tories gathers in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a viable path exists at all. These are challenging circumstances for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

Things could have turned out so different if concrete steps had been made on an priority that resonates with people nationwide: Social mobility. Yet Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the basic understanding on how to turn the trendy talk on levelling up into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it debated what the term truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what social mobility signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It was our departmental mantra, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we realize fair chances – not by taking opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital education department term we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, but opportunity is not”, served as a intentional wording, embodying the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by employers or our economic system. Thus, education and business were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an agenda about the community framework of our country – investing in individual capabilities and connecting them to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was published a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in investment, enterprise, economic policy, taxation and in place-making. Additionally, in learning, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – even though it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the only engine of social mobility, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is vital for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the tomorrow is crucial. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people view their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, 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 party that did that? The targeted programme is a clear case of what might have become a game-changing Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Conservatives learned, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The electorate penalized the government for its incompetence but, primarily, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the responsibility on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has passed to a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. The current administration has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the failing Tories, the alternative party, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I come from, in the region. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the similar destiny, the respective organizations should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but actual achievement of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. Britain’s endemically weak life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in occupations with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. But where is the party that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so desperately.