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While the beleaguered Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a clear direction exists at all. These are tough times for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if concrete steps had been made on an priority that resonates with people across the country: Social mobility. But the former leadership did not possess the slightest idea on how to convert the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what social mobility meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. This became our guiding principle, and its meaning is straightforward: levelling up is the method by which we realize fair chances – not by taking chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding chances to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

The other key education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, yet chances are not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two halves of a social mobility strategy. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our market. As a result, schools and companies were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an priority about the community framework of our country – fostering people’s potential and connecting them to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes overseen from the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was launched a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, economic policy, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the sole mechanism of social mobility, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is essential for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are related; that if people aspire, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the years ahead is critical. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people view their future.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its new leader election, in that period, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what might have become a revolutionary administration strategy on levelling up, but that chance was totally misused. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the Conservatives learned, breaking the promise of fair chances is the costliest mistake any government can make. Voters penalized the leadership for its incompetence but, above all, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

At present the baton on equal opportunity and fair access has been transferred to a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. Labour has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is gradually replacing the struggling Tories, the alternative party, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I was raised in, in my hometown. It promises that an former economic strength can reincarnate into an industrial future.

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

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the identical outcome, both these parties should learn from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is far more challenging. The UK’s endemically weak social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss fairer opportunities however much they like. Yet where is the organization that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires fair chances so urgently.