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As the existentially challenged Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a clear direction remains open. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people across the country: Levelling up. But Boris Johnson’s government lacked the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility signified when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. This became our departmental mantra, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the means by which we achieve equality of opportunity – without removing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing options to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, again was a intentional wording, embodying the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. First, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Second, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economy. As a result, education and business were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the social fabric of our country – supporting human talent and linking them with prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the previous government? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was launched almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, business, financial planning, tax and in community development. Additionally, in education, including a university system that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – although it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for young working-class people, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the sole mechanism of fair chances, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is essential for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For any government, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the future is crucial. Research by the academic institution at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those areas being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their future than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people perceive their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those communities vote for a party that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is a single instance of what could have been a transformative Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that possibility was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the Tories discovered, breaking the promise of social mobility is the costliest mistake any political party can make. Voters held accountable the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the baton on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a new administration. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is gradually replacing the struggling Tories, Reform UK, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I grew up in, in the region. It promises that an industrial past can revive into an industrial future.

For voters, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the same fate, the respective organizations should learn from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but effective implementation of more equal results is far more challenging. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in employment with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any genuine belief their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss equal chances repeatedly. Yet where is the organization that has the complete plan on social mobility? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has urgently needs equal access so badly.