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While the struggling Tories gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a clear direction is available. These are tough times for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been so different if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Social mobility. However Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the first clue on how to transform the popular slogan on social mobility into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up entailed when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our departmental mantra, and its meaning is straightforward: levelling up is the means by which we attain fair chances – without removing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by providing opportunities to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, yet chances are not”, again was a intentional wording, embodying the dual components of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our market. Thus, schools and companies were crucial to achieving better life chances. This constituted an mission about the social fabric of our country – supporting human talent and providing access to opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

How did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes administered out of the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was published almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, taxation and in community development. Additionally, in learning, including a university system that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the sole mechanism of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is crucial for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the tomorrow is critical. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those areas being up to a significant margin more positive about their future than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The research confirms: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their prospects.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its new leader election, in that period, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those communities vote for a organization that made that decision? This specific initiative is a clear case of what had the potential to be a game-changing Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of fair chances is the most expensive error any government can make. Voters punished the leadership for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

Currently the mandate on social mobility and equal chances has been taken up by a new administration. The old slogan has been discarded. Labour has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is gradually replacing the struggling Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I grew up in, in the region. It promises that an former economic strength can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

For the public, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the similar destiny, both these parties should understand the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is much harder. The UK’s endemically weak social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in employment with little to show after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can mention improved access however much they like. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on life chances? None appear to exist. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so urgently.