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While the beleaguered Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a road forward remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that matters to people nationwide: Levelling up. But the former leadership did not possess the first clue on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it debated what the phrase even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It served as our departmental mantra, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we realize fair chances – not through reducing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that lack them.

The Core Concept

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, but opportunity is not”, served as a deliberate expression, representing the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our market. Therefore, education and business were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the societal structure of our country – supporting human talent and linking them with chances.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was published almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in investment, commerce, fiscal strategy, taxation and in place-making. And, of course, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a target for leaders across parties – although it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is crucial for our country to thrive. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are linked; that if people aspire, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the years ahead is critical. Research by the research body at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to students in those areas being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their future than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their prospects.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its new leader election, in September 2022, the ruling party ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those regions vote for a organization that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what had the potential to be a game-changing Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the ruling party learned, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The public punished the leadership for its failure but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

Currently the mandate on life chances and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is increasingly displacing the hapless Tories, the challenger, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an former economic strength can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Same issue, different language. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the same fate, the respective organizations should understand the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. Britain’s chronically poor social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in occupations with few results after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss equal chances as much as they want. Yet where is the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has never needed fair chances so desperately.