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As the struggling Tories meets in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a clear direction is available. These are challenging circumstances for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

It could have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an priority that matters to people across the country: Equal opportunity. But Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the first clue on how to transform the popular slogan on levelling up into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it debated what the term even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up entailed when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It was our departmental mantra, and its purpose is straightforward: levelling up is the approach by which we achieve equality of opportunity – not by taking opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

Another crucial education department term we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, however access isn’t”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a social mobility strategy. Initially, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our education system. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our market. As a result, education and business were key to achieving better life chances. This was an mission about the societal structure of our country – fostering people’s potential and linking them with chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did the social mobility agenda turn into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the DLUHC. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was released almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in investment, enterprise, fiscal strategy, taxation and in community development. Moreover, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – even though it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is crucial for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are connected; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is critical. Studies by the research body at the university and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to students in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their future.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its new leader election, in September 2022, the ruling party ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a political group that did that? The targeted programme is a clear case of what had the potential to be a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that chance was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the ruling party discovered, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any government can make. The electorate penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

At present the mandate on life chances and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a Labour government. The old slogan has been abandoned. Labour has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is gradually replacing the hapless Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It suggests that an industrial past can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Same issue, new terminology. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the same fate, both these parties should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that fair chance language is easy to say, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s endemically weak social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those working hard 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 improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention equal chances repeatedly. However, which party has the political group that has the complete plan on life chances? I see none. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not only for their party, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has never needed fair chances so urgently.