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As the struggling Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a viable path remains open. These are tough times for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

It could have been so different if real advances had been made on an agenda that matters to people across the country: Social mobility. However the former leadership hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to transform the popular slogan on social mobility into concrete action. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the phrase even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It was our departmental mantra, and its meaning is unambiguous: social mobility is the method by which we attain fair chances – without removing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding options to those that lack them.

The Core Concept

The other key DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, yet chances are not”, served as a intentional wording, representing the dual components of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an priority about the societal structure of our country – fostering human talent and linking them with prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up evolve into under the previous government? Regional development money administered out of the DLUHC. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was published almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, financial planning, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the only engine of social mobility, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is crucial for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people aim high, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the future is crucial. Analysis by the academic institution at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those areas being up to a significant margin more positive about their future than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people perceive their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the ruling party ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a organization that made that decision? This specific initiative is one example of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was totally misused. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the ruling party discovered, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any leadership can make. Voters penalized the leadership for its incompetence but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

At present the baton on social mobility and fair access has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been cast off. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is steadily supplanting the struggling Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an revitalized economy.

For the public, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, different language. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to escape the identical outcome, both these parties should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but effective implementation of more equal results is far more challenging. Our nation’s persistently low life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in employment with few results after the living expenses are met, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss improved access however much they like. But where is the organization that has the complete plan on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for their party, but, significantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs fair chances so desperately.