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While the existentially challenged Tories convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a clear direction is available. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out markedly improved if real advances had been made on an agenda that is important for people nationwide: Equal opportunity. However Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the phrase actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our core mission, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the means by which we realize fair chances – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending options to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

The other key ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, however access isn’t”, served as a intentional wording, embodying the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. First, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economy. Therefore, education and business were essential to achieving better life chances. This was an mission about the societal structure of our country – investing in human talent and providing access to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? A towns fund managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was launched a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, economic policy, tax and in local regeneration. And, of course, in schooling, including a university system that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is vital for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aim high, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the future is crucial. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people view their future.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a political group that did that? This specific initiative is a clear case of what had the potential to be a revolutionary Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was totally misused. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the ruling party learned, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The public penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Now the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has been taken up by a opposition party. The previous terminology has been discarded. 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 challenger, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I was raised in, in my hometown. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an industrial future.

For the public, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, new terminology. But – as yet – no results.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the identical outcome, each group should understand the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. Our nation’s endemically weak social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in employment with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any actual expectation their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians can mention improved access as much as they want. But where is the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equal access so urgently.