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As the struggling Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a clear direction exists at all. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people across the country: Levelling up. But the former leadership lacked the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. This became our guiding principle, and its definition is straightforward: social mobility is the approach by which we achieve fair chances – without removing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, but opportunity is not”, served as a intentional wording, reflecting the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. First, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our market. Thus, learning and employment were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an mission about the social fabric of our country – fostering people’s potential and connecting them to chances.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. A white paper was released a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in funding, enterprise, economic policy, revenue and in place-making. Moreover, in learning, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the primary source of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is essential for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are linked; that if people aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to create a feeling of hope about the future is important. Analysis by the research body at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their future than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those areas vote for a political group that did that? This specific initiative is a single instance of what could have been a game-changing administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was totally misused. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Tories found out, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. Voters punished the government for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Now the responsibility on life chances and equality of opportunity has passed to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been discarded. Labour has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the struggling incumbents, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can reincarnate into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the identical outcome, the respective organizations should understand the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but actual achievement of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. The UK’s endemically weak life chances remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in occupations with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can mention improved access however much they like. But where is the organization that has the complete plan on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a whole country that has never needed equal access so badly.