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As the beleaguered Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. There is uncertainty if a viable path remains open. These are tough times for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been vastly better if real advances had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people throughout the UK: Levelling up. But the previous administration hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the 2019 election, it discussed what the term even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to Johnson 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 DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our core mission, and its purpose is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we realize equality of opportunity – without removing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, served as a deliberate expression, embodying the dual components of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Second, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our market. Therefore, schools and companies were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an mission about the societal structure of our country – supporting individual capabilities and providing access to prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up become under the previous government? Regional development money overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was released nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives 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 investment, commerce, financial planning, taxation and in place-making. Moreover, in schooling, including a university system that has become a target for elected officials – although it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is essential for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aspire, they can attain. For any government, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is important. Analysis by the academic institution at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those communities being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those communities vote for a party that did that? The targeted programme is one example of what could have been a transformative Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that chance was totally misused. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the Conservatives learned, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any government can make. The public held accountable the government for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

At present the baton on social mobility and equal chances has been taken up by a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. The new government has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I was raised in, in the region. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, different language. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the similar destiny, each group should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s endemically weak life chances remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, those working hard in employment with minimal progress after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their next generation will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can mention improved access however much they like. However, which party has the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.