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As the existentially challenged Tories gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a viable path remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out markedly improved if real advances had been made on an agenda that is important for people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However the former leadership did not possess the first clue on how to convert the popular slogan on social mobility into concrete action. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. It served as our guiding principle, and its purpose is clear: levelling up is the means by which we attain fair chances – not by taking opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by extending chances to those that are without.

The Core Concept

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, again was a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Furthermore, access not provided uniformly by employers or our economic system. As a result, schools and companies were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an agenda about the social fabric of our country – fostering individual capabilities and linking them with prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund managed by the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was released a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in capital, commerce, economic policy, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is vital for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are linked; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the years ahead is important. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those communities being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their future.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that took that action? This specific initiative is one example of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that possibility was completely wasted. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the ruling party learned, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the most expensive error any government can make. Voters punished the administration for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the baton on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a Labour government. The old slogan has been abandoned. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the failing Tories, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I come from, in my hometown. It promises that an industrial past can be reborn into an industrial future.

For voters, 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 escape the same fate, each group should understand the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but actual achievement of fairer outcomes is much harder. Our nation’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can mention fairer opportunities repeatedly. But where is the organization that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not just for their party, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.