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As the beleaguered Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a viable path is available. We are in tough times for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been vastly better if real advances had been made on an priority that is important for people throughout the UK: Levelling up. Yet the former leadership lacked the basic understanding on how to transform the popular slogan on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it discussed what the concept even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. It served as our guiding principle, and its purpose is unambiguous: levelling up is the approach by which we achieve equal access – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending chances to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

The other key ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, but opportunity is not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, representing the dual components of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our economic system. Therefore, schools and companies were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an agenda about the social fabric of our country – fostering human talent and providing access to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up become under the Tory administration? A towns fund administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was published nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw current strategies repackaged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in funding, business, economic policy, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in education, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – although it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is crucial for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the years ahead is important. Studies by the research body at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their prospects than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people perceive their prospects.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its new leader election, in September 2022, the ruling party terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those areas vote for a organization that made that decision? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Tories learned, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the biggest blunder any government can make. The public held accountable the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has passed to a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. Labour has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the struggling Tories, the challenger, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I grew up in, in the region. It promises that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Identical problem, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, each group should learn from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Britain’s endemically weak social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in employment with little to show after the living expenses are met, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about fairer opportunities as much as they want. Yet where is the party that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I see none. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equal access so urgently.