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While the struggling Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a viable path is available. These are tough times for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

Things could have turned out markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an priority that resonates with people nationwide: Social mobility. But Boris Johnson’s government lacked the basic understanding on how to transform the popular slogan on levelling up into policy reality. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility signified when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It served as our guiding principle, and its purpose is unambiguous: social mobility is the approach by which we realize fair chances – not by taking prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding options to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, again was a intentional wording, reflecting the two parts of a fairness agenda. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our market. Therefore, learning and employment were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an priority about the community framework of our country – investing in human talent and connecting them to prospects.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up become under the previous government? A towns fund overseen from the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was published nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in capital, enterprise, financial planning, taxation and in community development. Moreover, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a target for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is crucial for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are linked; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the tomorrow is crucial. Research by the academic institution at the university and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their future than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people view their prospects.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its new leader election, in that period, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those communities vote for a organization that made that decision? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a game-changing Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the ruling party discovered, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The electorate held accountable the leadership for its failure but, above all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the responsibility on social mobility and equality of opportunity has passed to a Labour government. The previous terminology has been cast off. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is steadily supplanting the struggling Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an industrial past can revive into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the same fate, each group should understand the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of more equal results is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s endemically weak social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in employment with little to show after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention equal chances repeatedly. But where is the political group that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so urgently.