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As the struggling Conservative party meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a viable path remains open. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that matters to people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. Yet the previous administration lacked the first clue on how to convert the trendy talk on levelling up into policy reality. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the term even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what social mobility meant 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 equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the approach by which we realize fair chances – not through reducing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that are without.

The Core Concept

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, however access isn’t”, represented another a deliberate expression, representing the two halves of a social mobility strategy. First, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economy. Therefore, education and business were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an priority about the community framework of our country – supporting individual capabilities and providing access to chances.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda become under the Tory administration? A towns fund overseen from the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was published a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in capital, business, economic policy, taxation and in place-making. Moreover, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – although it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is crucial for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the years ahead is critical. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those communities being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their future than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people view their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a organization that did that? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a game-changing administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Conservatives discovered, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The electorate held accountable the government for its failure but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Currently the baton on life chances and fair access has been taken up by a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. The new government has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I come from, in my hometown. It suggests that an former economic strength can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the same fate, both these parties should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but actual achievement of more equal results is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those working hard in occupations with minimal progress 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.

Elected officials can discuss fairer opportunities as much as they want. Yet where is the party that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for their organization, but, crucially, for a whole country that has desperately requires equal access so urgently.