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While the beleaguered Tories convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a road forward exists at all. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people across the country: Social mobility. But the previous administration hadn’t got the first clue on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the general election, it debated what the phrase even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. This became our departmental mantra, and its definition is straightforward: social mobility is the method by which we achieve equality of opportunity – without removing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

The other key education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, yet chances are not”, served as a deliberate expression, representing the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our education system. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an mission about the social fabric of our country – investing in people’s potential and linking them with opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda become under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was published a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in investment, commerce, financial planning, taxation and in community development. And, of course, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a scapegoat for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the sole mechanism of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is vital for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are related; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For any government, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the future is critical. Studies by the academic institution at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those communities being up to a significant margin more positive about their prospects than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people perceive their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a organization that made that decision? The targeted programme is a clear case of what had the potential to be a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that possibility was totally misused. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the ruling party discovered, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The public penalized the government for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

At present the responsibility on life chances and fair access has been transferred to a Labour government. The previous terminology has been abandoned. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is gradually replacing the struggling Tories, the challenger, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an industrial past can be reborn into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Identical problem, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the identical outcome, the respective organizations should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but successful delivery of more equal results is significantly more difficult. Britain’s chronically poor life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in full-time jobs with few results after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can mention improved access repeatedly. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not only for their party, but, significantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equal access so urgently.