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As the struggling Tories gathers in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a road forward remains open. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

It could have been markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an priority that is important for people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However Boris Johnson’s government lacked the slightest idea on how to convert the popular slogan on social mobility into policy reality. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the concept even meant.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. It served as our guiding principle, and its purpose is clear: social mobility is the means by which we realize equal access – without removing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending options to those that are without.

Essential Principle

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, however access isn’t”, served as a deliberate expression, representing the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economy. Therefore, education and business were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an priority about the community framework of our country – investing in individual capabilities and linking them with prospects.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up turn into under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund overseen from the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was published nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in investment, business, financial planning, revenue and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for young working-class people, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is crucial for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are related; that if people dream big, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the years ahead is important. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their future than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those communities vote for a political group that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is a single instance of what might have become a transformative Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was completely wasted. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any government can make. Voters held accountable the government for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the baton on life chances and equality of opportunity has passed to a new administration. The old slogan has been cast off. The new government has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is gradually replacing the hapless incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It suggests that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, different language. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the same fate, both these parties should understand the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. The UK’s endemically weak social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in occupations with little to show after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any actual expectation their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss fairer opportunities repeatedly. Yet where is the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs equal access so urgently.