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As the struggling Tories convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a road forward remains open. These are tough times for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been vastly better if real advances had been made on an priority that matters to people throughout the UK: Social mobility. However the former leadership did not possess the basic understanding on how to turn the trendy talk on levelling up into policy reality. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it argued over what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is clear: levelling up is the method by which we attain fair chances – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending options to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, however access isn’t”, again was a purposeful phrase, embodying the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. First, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our economic system. As a result, education and business were crucial to achieving better life chances. This represented an mission about the social fabric of our country – supporting people’s potential and connecting them to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up become under the Tory administration? Regional development money managed by the DLUHC. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was released a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went undeveloped, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in investment, business, fiscal strategy, taxation and in place-making. Additionally, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a target for elected officials – although it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for young working-class people, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the only engine of social mobility, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is vital for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are linked; that if people aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is important. Research by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people perceive their destiny.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a party that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what might have become a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Tories found out, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any government can make. The electorate punished the government for its failure but, above all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

Now the baton on equal opportunity and equal chances has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been abandoned. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the hapless Tories, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, different language. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the same fate, each group should understand the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that fair chance language is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. The UK’s chronically poor life chances remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with little to show after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention fairer opportunities repeatedly. Yet where is the political group that has the complete plan on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs fair chances so badly.