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While the existentially challenged Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a clear direction remains open. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an agenda that matters to people across the country: Equal opportunity. Yet Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the first clue on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it discussed what the concept truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our core mission, and its definition is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we attain fair chances – without removing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding options to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

The other key DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, but opportunity is not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, embodying the two halves of a social mobility strategy. Initially, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economic system. As a result, education and business were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an mission about the societal structure of our country – investing in human talent and providing access to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda become under the Tory administration? A towns fund overseen from the DLUHC. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was launched almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the sole mechanism of fair chances, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is essential for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are related; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For any government, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the future is important. Studies by the research body 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 youth in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their future than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their destiny.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its new leader election, in September 2022, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a party that took that action? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Strategies such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the Tories learned, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The public penalized the administration for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Now the responsibility on equal opportunity and fair access has passed to a new administration. The previous terminology has been cast off. The new government has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the struggling incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can revive into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the similar destiny, the respective organizations should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in occupations with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their next generation will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss fairer opportunities however much they like. Yet where is the organization that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for their organization, but, significantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equal access so urgently.