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While the struggling Tories gathers in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that matters to people throughout the UK: Levelling up. Yet Boris Johnson’s government lacked the basic understanding on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into policy reality. For the two years after the 2019 election, it argued over what the phrase even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. This became our core mission, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the means by which we realize equality of opportunity – without removing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that lack them.

The Core Concept

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, again was a deliberate expression, representing the two parts of a social mobility strategy. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our economic system. Thus, learning and employment were essential to achieving better life chances. This constituted an agenda about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and providing access to prospects.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda become under the Tory administration? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A white paper was released almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, financial planning, tax and in community development. And, of course, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a target for leaders across parties – although it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Maybe the sole mechanism of social mobility, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is essential for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can attain. For any government, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the years ahead is important. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those areas being up to a significant margin more positive about their future than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people feel about their destiny.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the ruling party ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those communities vote for a organization that made that decision? This specific initiative is one example of what could have been a game-changing Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Tories discovered, failing to deliver of social mobility is the biggest blunder any government can make. The electorate punished the government for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

At present the baton on equal opportunity and fair access has passed to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been abandoned. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the struggling Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an former economic strength can be reborn into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the identical outcome, both these parties should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is much harder. The UK’s persistently low social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in occupations with minimal progress after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about fairer opportunities as much as they want. Yet where is the organization that has the complete plan on life chances? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so urgently.