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While the struggling Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a viable path remains open. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out so different if concrete steps had been made on an priority that is important for people across the country: Levelling up. Yet Boris Johnson’s government lacked the basic understanding on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into concrete action. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the phrase actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility entailed when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its meaning is straightforward: social mobility is the approach by which we attain equal access – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

The other key ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, yet chances are not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, embodying the two parts of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economic system. Thus, learning and employment were crucial to achieving better life chances. This constituted an priority about the social fabric of our country – investing in individual capabilities and linking them with prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund managed by the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was launched almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in investment, commerce, fiscal strategy, taxation and in local regeneration. And, of course, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the sole mechanism of social mobility, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is crucial for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are linked; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the years ahead is crucial. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more positive about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations 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 prospects.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a organization that did that? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what could have been a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the Tories found out, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any leadership can make. The public penalized the government for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

At present the mandate on life chances and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been abandoned. The new government has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is gradually replacing the hapless Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the similar destiny, both these parties should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that fair chance language is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. Our nation’s chronically poor social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with few results after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention equal chances however much they like. However, which party has the political group that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? None appear to exist. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not only for their organization, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has never needed fair chances so desperately.