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While the struggling Conservative party meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a clear direction is available. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if real advances had been made on an priority that is important for people across the country: Levelling up. Yet Boris Johnson’s government lacked the slightest idea on how to turn the popular slogan on levelling up into policy reality. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility meant when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. This became our departmental mantra, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the means by which we achieve equal access – not by taking prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing opportunities to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, but opportunity is not”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our education system. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our economic system. As a result, learning and employment were essential to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the societal structure of our country – supporting people’s potential and providing access to opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the previous government? Regional development money overseen from the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was released a significant period after the leadership change, which saw current strategies rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in capital, business, financial planning, revenue and in local regeneration. And, of course, in education, including a university system that has become a target for leaders across parties – although it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the sole mechanism of social mobility, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is crucial for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is crucial. Research by the academic institution at the university and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people view their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its new leader election, in September 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what had the potential to be a game-changing administration strategy on levelling up, but that chance was totally misused. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. In contrast, as the Conservatives learned, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The public penalized the administration for its incompetence but, above all, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

At present the mandate on social mobility and equal chances has passed to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been abandoned. The current administration has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the hapless incumbents, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I come from, in my hometown. It suggests that an industrial past can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

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

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the same fate, each group should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s persistently low social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in occupations with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about improved access repeatedly. However, which party has 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, crucially, for a whole country that has urgently needs fair chances so badly.