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While the beleaguered Tories gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a road forward exists at all. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that matters to people nationwide: Equal opportunity. Yet Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it argued over what the concept even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up meant when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. It served as our departmental mantra, and its definition is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we achieve equality of opportunity – without removing prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending options to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

Another crucial education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, again was a purposeful phrase, embodying the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economic system. Thus, education and business were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an agenda about the societal structure of our country – supporting individual capabilities and connecting them to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up turn into under the previous government? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A white paper was published a significant period after the leadership change, which saw current strategies rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in capital, business, economic policy, tax and in local regeneration. And, of course, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is crucial for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are connected; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the years ahead is important. Research by the research body at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those communities being up to a significant margin more positive about their prospects than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their future.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its new leader election, in September 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those regions vote for a political group that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what might have become a transformative Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of social mobility is the most expensive error any leadership can make. The electorate punished the government for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

At present the mandate on life chances and fair access has been taken up by a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. Labour has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is gradually replacing the struggling Tories, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I grew up in, in the region. It claims that an former economic strength can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must feel like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Identical problem, different language. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the identical outcome, the respective organizations should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that fair chance language is easy to say, but actual achievement of more equal results is far more challenging. Our nation’s endemically weak life chances remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in occupations with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can mention improved access repeatedly. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I see none. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not just for their organization, but, crucially, for a complete society that has desperately requires fair chances so desperately.