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As the struggling Conservative party meets in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a viable path exists at all. These are tough times for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

It could have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that matters to people across the country: Levelling up. But Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to turn the trendy talk on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it argued over what the term actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It was our departmental mantra, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the approach by which we achieve fair chances – without removing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by providing opportunities to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, however access isn’t”, served as a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a fairness agenda. First, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economy. As a result, schools and companies were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an agenda about the social fabric of our country – supporting human talent and providing access to prospects.

The Actual Outcome

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was released nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in funding, enterprise, financial planning, revenue and in community development. And, of course, in schooling, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – even though it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the only engine of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is essential for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are connected; that if people aim high, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the years ahead is important. Research by the academic institution at the university and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those areas being up to a significant margin more positive about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a political group that did that? The targeted programme is a single instance of what might have become a transformative Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Tories discovered, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the most expensive error any leadership can make. The electorate held accountable the administration for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

At present the responsibility on life chances and equal chances has been transferred to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the failing Tories, the challenger, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I grew up in, in the region. It claims that an industrial past can revive into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the similar destiny, each group should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but actual achievement of more equal results is much harder. Britain’s endemically weak social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in occupations with little to show after the living expenses are met, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss improved access as much as they want. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not just for their organization, but, crucially, for a complete society that has urgently needs fair chances so urgently.