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While the beleaguered Conservative party gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a clear direction is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an priority that matters to people nationwide: Equal opportunity. However Boris Johnson’s government lacked the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. During the initial period after the general election, it debated what the concept even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our guiding principle, and its meaning is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we realize fair chances – not by taking prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

Another crucial education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, served as a purposeful phrase, reflecting the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. First, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, access not provided uniformly by employers or our economy. Thus, schools and companies were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the social fabric of our country – supporting human talent and providing access to prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money overseen from the DLUHC. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was published almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in investment, commerce, economic policy, taxation and in community development. Additionally, in learning, including a university system that has become a punchbag for elected officials – even though 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, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is essential for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are linked; that if people aim high, they can achieve. For any government, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is critical. Research by the research body at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their future.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a organization that made that decision? The targeted programme is one example of what might have become a game-changing Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the ruling party learned, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The public held accountable the administration for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Present Circumstances

At present the mandate on life chances and equality of opportunity has passed to a Labour government. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I come from, in my hometown. It suggests that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, each group should understand the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of more equal results is far more challenging. The UK’s persistently low social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can mention fairer opportunities however much they like. Yet where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not only for their party, but, significantly, for a complete society that has never needed equality of opportunity so badly.