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As the existentially challenged Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a clear direction exists at all. These are tough times for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out so different if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that matters to people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However the former leadership hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the term actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up entailed when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. This became our guiding principle, and its meaning is clear: social mobility is the method by which we attain equality of opportunity – not by taking chances away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

The other key ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, yet chances are not”, represented another a intentional wording, embodying the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economy. As a result, education and business were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an agenda about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and connecting them to prospects.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? A towns fund administered out of the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was published nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw current strategies relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, financial planning, tax and in place-making. Moreover, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a target for leaders across parties – even though it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the sole mechanism of social mobility, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is vital for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are related; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the future is critical. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to students in those areas being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their future than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people perceive their prospects.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that made that decision? This specific initiative is a clear case of what had the potential to be a transformative Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the Tories discovered, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the most expensive error any leadership can make. The public held accountable the government for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Currently the responsibility on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a Labour government. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is steadily supplanting the failing Tories, Reform UK, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I come from, in my hometown. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the same fate, each group should understand the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but effective implementation of more equal results is much harder. Britain’s persistently low social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in employment with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention improved access however much they like. But where is the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not just for their party, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.