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While the existentially challenged Tories gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a clear direction remains open. These are challenging circumstances for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

It could have been vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an priority that resonates with people across the country: Social mobility. However the previous administration did not possess the slightest idea on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what social mobility entailed when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. This became our core mission, and its purpose is clear: levelling up is the means by which we achieve fair chances – not through reducing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by providing opportunities to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

The other key ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, however access isn’t”, served as a intentional wording, reflecting the two halves of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Second, access not provided uniformly by employers or our economic system. Thus, schools and companies were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the social fabric of our country – fostering human talent and providing access to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up become under the Tory administration? A towns fund overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was published nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, enterprise, economic policy, revenue and in community development. Additionally, in schooling, including a university system that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is crucial for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are related; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For any government, being able to create a feeling of hope about the years ahead is important. Research by the research body at the university and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to students in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their future than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people perceive their destiny.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a organization that did that? This specific initiative is one example of what might have become a transformative Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of fair chances is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The electorate punished the government for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

At present the baton on equal opportunity and equal chances has passed to a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. The new government has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the hapless incumbents, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an industrial past can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Identical problem, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the same fate, both these parties should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that fair chance language is easy to say, but actual achievement of more equal results is far more challenging. The UK’s persistently low social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any actual expectation their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about improved access repeatedly. However, which party has the organization that has the thorough strategy on life chances? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, wins. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a complete society that has never needed equal access so urgently.