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As the struggling Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a clear direction is available. These are challenging circumstances for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been so different if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people nationwide: Equal opportunity. Yet the previous administration did not possess the slightest idea on how to turn the trendy talk on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the phrase truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its purpose is unambiguous: levelling up is the approach by which we attain equal access – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by providing chances to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

The other key ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, however access isn’t”, served as a deliberate expression, embodying the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our market. As a result, learning and employment were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an agenda about the social fabric of our country – fostering people’s potential and linking them with opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up turn into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was published a significant period after the leadership change, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, enterprise, fiscal strategy, taxation and in place-making. Additionally, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of social mobility, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is vital for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the future is important. Research by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those areas being up to a significant margin more positive about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their future.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a party that took that action? The targeted programme is a single instance of what had the potential to be a transformative Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that possibility was totally misused. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Tories found out, breaking the promise of fair chances is the biggest blunder any government can make. Voters penalized the government for its incompetence but, above all, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the baton on social mobility and equal chances has passed to a opposition party. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the failing Tories, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I come from, in the region. It suggests that an former economic strength can revive into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to escape the similar destiny, the respective organizations should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but effective implementation of more equal results is significantly more difficult. Britain’s persistently low social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss equal chances as much as they want. Yet where is the political group that has the complete plan on social mobility? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not just for their organization, but, significantly, for a complete society that has desperately requires equal access so badly.