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While the existentially challenged Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a viable path remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been vastly better if real advances had been made on an agenda that matters to people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However the former leadership hadn’t got the first clue on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it argued over what the phrase even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It was our departmental mantra, and its purpose is unambiguous: levelling up is the approach by which we attain equality of opportunity – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding chances to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, however access isn’t”, served as a purposeful phrase, embodying the two halves of a fairness agenda. First, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our market. Thus, education and business were essential to achieving better life chances. This represented an mission about the community framework of our country – investing in individual capabilities and connecting them to prospects.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes overseen from the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was released nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, enterprise, financial planning, tax and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is vital for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are connected; that if people aim high, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to create a sense of optimism about the future is critical. Studies by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their future than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people feel about their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its new leader election, in that period, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a organization that did that? The targeted programme is one example of what might have become a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Tories found out, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any government can make. The electorate penalized the government for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Now the baton on life chances and fair access has passed to a opposition party. The old slogan has been cast off. Labour has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is gradually replacing the failing Tories, Reform UK, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I grew up in, in the region. It claims that an industrial past can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the same fate, the respective organizations should understand the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but actual achievement of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Britain’s persistently low social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss equal chances repeatedly. But where is the political group that has the complete plan on life chances? I see none. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a complete society that has never needed fair chances so urgently.