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While the beleaguered Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. There is uncertainty if a clear direction is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out so different if tangible progress had been made on an priority that matters to people nationwide: Levelling up. However the former leadership hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to turn the trendy talk on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the term actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up meant when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. It served as our departmental mantra, and its meaning is clear: social mobility is the means by which we attain fair chances – without removing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by providing chances to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

The other key ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, again was a deliberate expression, embodying the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Second, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our market. Thus, education and business were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an mission about the community framework of our country – fostering human talent and providing access to prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up turn into under the previous government? Regional development money managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was launched nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in investment, enterprise, economic policy, revenue and in place-making. And, of course, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a target for leaders across parties – even though it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is vital for our country to thrive. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are linked; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is critical. Studies by the academic institution at the university and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic 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 quickly and positively change how people view their destiny.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those communities vote for a party that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is a single instance of what had the potential to be a revolutionary Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that opportunity was totally misused. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the ruling party learned, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The public penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

Present Circumstances

Currently the responsibility on equal opportunity and equal chances has been taken up by a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is gradually replacing the failing Tories, Reform UK, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It promises that an industrial past can be reborn into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to escape the identical outcome, both these parties should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but actual achievement of more equal results is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in employment with few results after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any genuine belief their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss improved access however much they like. But where is the organization that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I see none. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has never needed equality of opportunity so desperately.