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While the beleaguered Tories gathers 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 difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Social mobility. However the previous administration hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to convert the popular slogan on levelling up into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the concept truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up meant when we first spoke 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. This became our core mission, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the approach by which we achieve equal access – not by taking opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

The other key education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, however access isn’t”, served as a purposeful phrase, representing the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. First, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Second, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our economy. As a result, education and business were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an agenda about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and providing access to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up turn into under the previous government? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A white paper was launched a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in capital, commerce, economic policy, taxation and in local regeneration. Additionally, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – even though it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the primary source of fair chances, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is essential for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For any government, being able to create a feeling of hope about the years ahead is critical. Studies by the research body at the university and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The data shows: just making an sincere effort on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the ruling party terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a party that made that decision? This specific initiative is one example of what might have become a revolutionary Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the Conservatives learned, failing to deliver of social mobility is the biggest blunder any government can make. The public punished the government for its failure but, primarily, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

At present the baton on social mobility and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a new administration. The old slogan has been cast off. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the identical outcome, both these parties should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in employment with few results after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss equal chances as much as they want. Yet where is the organization that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not just for their organization, but, significantly, for a complete society that has never needed equality of opportunity so badly.