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While the struggling Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a viable path remains open. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that is important for people across the country: Social mobility. However Boris Johnson’s government lacked the basic understanding on how to convert the popular slogan on levelling up into actual implementation. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it argued over what the term even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we realize equality of opportunity – without removing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, however access isn’t”, represented another a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two parts of a social mobility strategy. First, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economy. Therefore, learning and employment were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an agenda about the community framework of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was published a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went undeveloped, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in capital, enterprise, economic policy, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – even though it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the sole mechanism of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is vital for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are connected; that if people aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to create a feeling of hope about the future is critical. Research by the research body at the university and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those communities being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people view their future.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in that period, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those communities vote for a organization that did that? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a revolutionary administration strategy on social mobility, but that possibility was completely wasted. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Conservatives learned, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. Voters punished the government for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Currently the mandate on life chances and equality of opportunity has passed to 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 political group that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I grew up in, in the region. It promises that an former economic strength can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

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

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, each group should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. The UK’s persistently low social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in occupations with minimal progress after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians can mention fairer opportunities however much they like. However, which party has the political group that has the complete plan on social mobility? None appear to exist. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so badly.