As the original author championed levelling up as the essential to Conservative electoral victory – but Boris Johnson failed to deliver. See the current state.

As the struggling Tories convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a road forward remains open. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an priority that matters to people throughout the UK: Social mobility. Yet the former leadership hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the concept truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility meant when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. This became our guiding principle, and its purpose is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we realize fair chances – without removing prospects away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that are without.

Essential Principle

The other key ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, yet chances are not”, served as a deliberate expression, reflecting the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our market. As a result, education and business were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an priority about the social fabric of our country – supporting individual capabilities and linking them with chances.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was published almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw current strategies repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, economic policy, revenue and in local regeneration. Additionally, in learning, including a university system that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the sole mechanism of fair chances, 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 dream big, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the years ahead is critical. Research by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their future than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their future.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a organization that took that action? This specific initiative is one example of what could have been a transformative Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the Tories found out, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. Voters punished the government for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has been taken up by a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. The current administration has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the hapless Tories, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I was raised in, in the region. It claims that an industrial past can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Same issue, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the same fate, each group should understand the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that fair chance language is easy to say, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. But where is the organization that has the thorough strategy on life chances? I see none. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not just for their organization, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has urgently needs equal access so badly.