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As the struggling Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. There is uncertainty if a viable path remains open. We are in tough times for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that matters to people across the country: Equal opportunity. However Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it argued over what the term truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our departmental mantra, and its definition is clear: levelling up is the approach by which we achieve equality of opportunity – not through reducing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by extending chances to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, served as a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Second, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our market. As a result, education and business were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an priority about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and connecting them to chances.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up evolve into under the Tory administration? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was released nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in funding, enterprise, financial planning, taxation and in community development. And, of course, in schooling, including a university system that has become a punchbag for elected officials – even though it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the primary source of social mobility, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is crucial for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are linked; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to create a feeling of hope about the years ahead is important. Analysis by the research body at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those communities being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people perceive their prospects.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its new leader election, in that period, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a party that did that? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what had the potential to be a game-changing administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Conservatives discovered, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The electorate penalized the government for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Now the responsibility on equal opportunity and equal chances has been taken up by a new administration. The old slogan has been abandoned. Labour has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the struggling incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I come from, in the region. It claims that an industrial past can be reborn into an industrial future.

For voters, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Same issue, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the identical outcome, the respective organizations should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Britain’s chronically poor social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with few results after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about improved access however much they like. Yet where is the party that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not only for their party, but, crucially, for a whole country that has desperately requires fair chances so urgently.