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While the beleaguered Conservative party meets in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a viable path exists at all. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out so different if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that matters to people across the country: Levelling up. However Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the slightest idea on how to convert the popular slogan on levelling up into policy reality. During the initial period after the general election, it debated what the concept truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It served as our core mission, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the approach by which we realize fair chances – not by taking opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

The other key education department term we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, however access isn’t”, represented another a purposeful phrase, embodying the dual components of a fairness agenda. First, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economy. Therefore, learning and employment were key to achieving better life chances. This was an priority about the social fabric of our country – supporting individual capabilities and connecting them to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up become under the Tory administration? Regional development money administered out of the DLUHC. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was published a significant period after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in funding, business, financial planning, revenue and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is essential for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are connected; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the years ahead is critical. Research by the research body at the university and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their future than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people feel about their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in that period, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that did that? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what might have become a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Conservatives found out, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The electorate penalized the leadership for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Currently the mandate on life chances and equal chances has been transferred to a opposition party. The old slogan has been cast off. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the similar destiny, the respective organizations should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is much harder. The UK’s persistently low equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with few results after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. But where is the political group that has the complete plan on social mobility? I see none. The first to achieve this, wins. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a whole country that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so desperately.