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While the existentially challenged Tories gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a road forward exists at all. These are challenging circumstances for a political party that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if concrete steps had been made on an priority that resonates with people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. However the previous administration lacked the basic understanding on how to transform the trendy talk on social mobility into policy reality. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility meant 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 social mobility. It served as our core mission, and its definition is clear: levelling up is the approach by which we attain equal access – without removing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, represented another a deliberate expression, embodying the dual components of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Furthermore, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our economy. As a result, education and business were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an priority about the societal structure of our country – fostering people’s potential and connecting them to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up turn into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes managed by the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was published nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in funding, commerce, financial planning, revenue and in community development. Moreover, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the sole mechanism of fair chances, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is essential for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are related; that if people dream big, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is important. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their future than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people feel about their future.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those communities vote for a political group that took that action? This specific initiative is one example of what might have become a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the ruling party found out, breaking the promise of social mobility is the most expensive error any political party can make. Voters punished the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

At present the mandate on life chances and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. The new government has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is gradually replacing the hapless Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the similar destiny, both these parties should understand the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but actual achievement of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Britain’s endemically weak social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in employment with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can mention improved access as much as they want. Yet where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for their party, but, significantly, for a whole country that has never needed equality of opportunity so badly.