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As the struggling Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a viable path is available. These are tough times for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. But the previous administration hadn’t got the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it argued over what the concept actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we achieve fair chances – not by taking prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending options to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

The other key education department term we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, embodying the two halves of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our market. Thus, education and business were essential to achieving better life chances. This was an mission about the community framework of our country – supporting human talent and connecting them to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up become under the Tory administration? A towns fund administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was launched nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, 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 education, including a tertiary education that has become a target for elected officials – even though it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the primary source of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is crucial for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are linked; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the tomorrow is important. Analysis 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 – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their life ahead than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people perceive their future.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a party that did that? The targeted programme is one example of what could have been a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was totally misused. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the Tories found out, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any government can make. The public penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the responsibility on social mobility and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been discarded. Labour has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is gradually replacing the struggling incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I grew up in, in the region. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, different language. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the identical outcome, the respective organizations should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in occupations with few results after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their children will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss improved access as much as they want. Yet where is the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? None appear to exist. The first to achieve this, wins. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equal access so badly.