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As the struggling Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a viable path is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out so different if tangible progress had been made on an priority that resonates with people nationwide: Equal opportunity. However the former leadership lacked the first clue on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it debated what the term actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our core mission, and its definition is unambiguous: levelling up is the approach by which we realize fair chances – not through reducing prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing options to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, yet chances are not”, represented another a intentional wording, reflecting the two halves of a fairness agenda. To begin with, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our economic system. As a result, schools and companies were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an mission about the community framework of our country – investing in individual capabilities and connecting them to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda 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 nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in investment, commerce, economic policy, taxation and in local regeneration. Additionally, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – even though it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the only engine of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is crucial for our country to thrive. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are connected; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For any government, being able to create a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is crucial. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their future than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people feel about their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a organization that made that decision? This specific initiative is a clear case of what might have become a revolutionary administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the ruling party learned, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The electorate held accountable the administration for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

Now the responsibility on life chances and equal chances has been taken up by a opposition party. The old slogan has been abandoned. The current administration 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 – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can revive into an industrial future.

For voters, it must feel like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, different language. But – as yet – no results.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the same fate, each group should understand the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that fair chance language is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about improved access repeatedly. However, which party has the party that has the complete plan on life chances? I see none. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not only for their organization, but, crucially, for a complete society that has never needed equal access so urgently.