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As the struggling Tories convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a viable path remains open. These are tough times for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an priority that matters to people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the slightest idea on how to turn the popular slogan on levelling up into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it argued over what the term truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up entailed when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. This became our departmental mantra, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we attain equality of opportunity – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that are without.

The Core Concept

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, represented another a deliberate expression, embodying the two halves of a fairness agenda. First, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our market. Therefore, education and business were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an mission about the community framework of our country – investing in individual capabilities and connecting them to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

How did the social mobility agenda become under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was released almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in investment, enterprise, financial planning, revenue and in place-making. Additionally, in learning, including a university system that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the primary source of social mobility, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is essential for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are linked; that if people dream big, they can attain. For any government, being able to create a sense of optimism about the tomorrow is important. Studies by the academic institution at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their prospects than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a political group that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what had the potential to be a transformative Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that chance was completely wasted. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the ruling party discovered, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any government can make. The electorate penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Currently the baton on life chances and equality of opportunity has passed to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. Labour has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the failing incumbents, the challenger, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in the region. It suggests that an industrial past can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, different language. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the same fate, each group should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but actual achievement of more equal results is much harder. The UK’s endemically weak social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in employment with few results after the living expenses are met, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention equal chances repeatedly. However, which party has the organization that has the complete plan on life chances? I see none. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not only for their organization, but, significantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs equal access so badly.