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While the struggling Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. These are difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been markedly improved if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that matters to people nationwide: Social mobility. Yet the former leadership lacked the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it discussed what the concept truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up meant when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. This became our core mission, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the means by which we realize equal access – not by taking prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending opportunities to those that are without.

The Core Concept

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, served as a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two halves of a fairness agenda. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our education system. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economy. Thus, learning and employment were essential to achieving better life chances. This constituted an priority about the social fabric of our country – fostering people’s potential and linking them with prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up become under the previous government? Local investment schemes overseen from the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A white paper was published nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in funding, enterprise, financial planning, revenue and in place-making. Additionally, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is vital for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are related; that if people aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the future is important. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those communities being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their future than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people feel about their future.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a party that took that action? This specific initiative is one example of what could have been a game-changing administration strategy on levelling up, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any government can make. The electorate penalized the leadership for its incompetence but, primarily, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

At present the baton on equal opportunity and fair access has passed to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been cast off. Labour has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an industrial past can revive into an industrial future.

For the public, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Identical problem, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the same fate, each group should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but actual achievement of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. Our nation’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention improved access as much as they want. However, which party has the political group that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has urgently needs fair chances so desperately.