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While the existentially challenged Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a viable path remains open. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people nationwide: Social mobility. However the previous administration hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into actual implementation. During the initial period after the general election, it argued over what the term actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility meant when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. This became our departmental mantra, and its meaning is clear: levelling up is the method by which we attain fair chances – without removing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending opportunities to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

The other key ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, however access isn’t”, served as a deliberate expression, embodying the two parts of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Second, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our market. Therefore, schools and companies were crucial to achieving better life chances. This represented an agenda about the societal structure of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up become under the previous government? Local investment schemes managed by the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A white paper was released nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in investment, enterprise, economic policy, revenue and in community development. Additionally, in learning, including a university system that has become a target for leaders across parties – although it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the primary source of social mobility, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is essential for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For any government, being able to create a sense of optimism about the years ahead is crucial. Analysis by the academic institution at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more positive about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people view their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those regions vote for a political group that did that? The targeted programme is a single instance of what had the potential to be a revolutionary administration strategy on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the Conservatives found out, failing to deliver of social mobility is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. Voters punished the leadership for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the responsibility on equal opportunity and equal chances has been taken up by a opposition party. The old slogan has been discarded. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is increasingly displacing the hapless incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an industrial past can be reborn into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, different language. But – as yet – no results.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the similar destiny, each group should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that fair chance language is easy to say, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about equal chances as much as they want. However, which party has the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? None appear to exist. The first to achieve this, wins. Not just for their party, but, crucially, for a complete society that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so badly.