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While the beleaguered Tories convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a viable path remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an priority that matters to people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However the previous administration hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to turn the trendy talk on social mobility into concrete action. For the two years after the general election, it argued over what the concept even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. It was our departmental mantra, and its definition is straightforward: social mobility is the means by which we achieve fair chances – without removing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending chances to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, yet chances are not”, again was a purposeful phrase, reflecting the dual components of a social mobility strategy. Initially, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Second, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our market. As a result, learning and employment were key to achieving better life chances. This was an priority about the societal structure of our country – supporting people’s potential and linking them with chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did the social mobility agenda turn into under the Tory administration? Regional development money overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was released almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw current strategies relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in capital, commerce, economic policy, taxation and in place-making. Additionally, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of social mobility, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is crucial for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are related; that if people aim high, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the future is crucial. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their future than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people view their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those areas vote for a political group that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what had the potential to be a game-changing Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the Tories discovered, breaking the promise of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The electorate held accountable the administration for its incompetence but, above all, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Present Circumstances

Currently the mandate on life chances and equal chances has been taken up by a Labour government. The old slogan has been discarded. The current administration has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is steadily supplanting the struggling Tories, the challenger, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an industrial past can revive into an revitalized economy.

To the electorate, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, both these parties should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s persistently low life chances remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in employment with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention fairer opportunities as much as they want. However, which party has the organization that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not just for their organization, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equal access so desperately.