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As the existentially challenged Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. There is uncertainty if a road forward exists at all. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that matters to people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. However Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its meaning is clear: levelling up is the means by which we attain equal access – not by taking opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, yet chances are not”, served as a deliberate expression, representing the dual components of a social mobility strategy. Initially, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our education system. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economy. Therefore, education and business were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an agenda about the social fabric of our country – supporting people’s potential and linking them with chances.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up become under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund managed by the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was published nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in investment, business, fiscal strategy, taxation and in local regeneration. Moreover, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for young working-class people, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the primary source of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is essential for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are connected; that if people dream big, they can attain. For any government, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the future is important. Analysis by the academic institution at the university and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their life ahead than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people perceive their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its new leader election, in that period, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a organization that took that action? This specific initiative is a single instance of what could have been a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Tories discovered, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The electorate penalized the government for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

At present the baton on life chances and equal chances has been transferred to a new administration. The previous terminology has been cast off. The current administration has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the hapless incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the identical outcome, each group should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but actual achievement of fairer outcomes is much harder. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with little to show after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their children will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss equal chances however much they like. But where is the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I see none. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not just for their party, but, crucially, for a whole country that has never needed equal access so urgently.