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As the beleaguered Tories convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a road forward remains open. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out so different if real advances had been made on an agenda that resonates with people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. However the previous administration did not possess the slightest idea on how to turn the trendy talk on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it argued over what the term even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up meant when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. This became our core mission, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the approach by which we achieve fair chances – without removing opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by providing options to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

The other key DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, yet chances are not”, again was a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our economic system. As a result, learning and employment were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an agenda about the community framework of our country – investing in human talent and linking them with prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money administered out of the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A white paper was published almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in investment, commerce, economic policy, revenue and in community development. And, of course, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is essential for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people aspire, they can attain. For any government, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is important. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people view their future.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those regions vote for a organization that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what might have become a transformative Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives found out, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the biggest blunder any government can make. The electorate held accountable the administration for its failure but, above all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Now the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has been transferred to a Labour government. The old slogan has been abandoned. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the struggling Tories, Reform UK, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an industrial past can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

To the electorate, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, the respective organizations should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but actual achievement of improved opportunities is far more challenging. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, those working hard in full-time jobs with few results after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can mention fairer opportunities repeatedly. However, which party has the political group that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, significantly, for a complete society that has never needed fair chances so badly.