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While the struggling Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a viable path exists at all. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people nationwide: Equal opportunity. Yet the former leadership did not possess the basic understanding on how to convert the popular slogan on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it discussed what the term truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. This became our departmental mantra, and its meaning is unambiguous: social mobility is the approach by which we achieve equality of opportunity – not by taking opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding chances to those that are without.

Essential Principle

The other key ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, however access isn’t”, again was a intentional wording, reflecting the two parts of a fairness agenda. First, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economic system. Therefore, schools and companies were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an mission about the social fabric of our country – supporting individual capabilities and providing access to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? A towns fund overseen from the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was released nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, taxation and in place-making. And, of course, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the only engine of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is crucial for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are related; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the future is critical. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to a significant margin more positive about their future than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its successor selection process, in that period, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a political group that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the ruling party found out, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any government can make. The public held accountable the government for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Now the baton on equal opportunity and fair access has been transferred to a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is increasingly displacing the hapless incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an industrial future.

For voters, it must feel like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the similar destiny, both these parties should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. The UK’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those working hard in full-time jobs 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.

Politicians can mention improved access as much as they want. Yet where is the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not just for their organization, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs fair chances so desperately.