As the original author advocated for social mobility as the key to Tory electoral victory – but Boris Johnson neglected the agenda. Observe the consequences.

As the struggling Conservative party meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. These are difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

Things could have turned out so different if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that resonates with people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. Yet the former leadership hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it argued over what the term actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. It served as our departmental mantra, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the approach by which we achieve equality of opportunity – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by providing chances to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

The other key education department term we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, yet chances are not”, again was a deliberate expression, reflecting the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our market. Therefore, learning and employment were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an priority about the societal structure of our country – fostering individual capabilities and linking them with chances.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? Regional development money administered out of the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was published almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in capital, commerce, financial planning, taxation and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the primary source of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is vital for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the future is critical. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those regions vote for a political group that made that decision? This specific initiative is a clear case of what might have become a transformative administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the Conservatives discovered, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any political party can make. The public held accountable the leadership for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

At present the responsibility on life chances and equality of opportunity has passed to a opposition party. The old slogan has been cast off. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is increasingly displacing the struggling incumbents, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an former economic strength can revive into an revitalized economy.

For the public, it must feel like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the identical outcome, the respective organizations should understand the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but actual achievement of fairer outcomes is much harder. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their next generation will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about equal chances as much as they want. However, which party has the political group that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs fair chances so desperately.