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While the beleaguered Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a road forward is available. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that matters to people nationwide: Social mobility. Yet the former leadership hadn’t got the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the concept truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. It served as our guiding principle, and its definition is unambiguous: social mobility is the method by which we attain equal access – not through reducing prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing options to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

The other key DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, however access isn’t”, again was a deliberate expression, reflecting the dual components of a social mobility strategy. First, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our market. As a result, schools and companies were crucial to achieving better life chances. This constituted an mission about the community framework of our country – supporting human talent and providing access to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was released almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in investment, enterprise, financial planning, revenue and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a target for elected officials – although it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the only engine of social mobility, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is essential for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are related; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the future is important. Analysis by the research body at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their life ahead than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people view their prospects.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the ruling party terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a party that did that? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what might have become a game-changing Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the ruling party found out, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. Voters punished the leadership for its incompetence but, above all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

Present Circumstances

Now the responsibility on equal opportunity and equal chances has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been abandoned. The new government has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is steadily supplanting the struggling Tories, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I come from, in the region. It suggests that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the same fate, the respective organizations should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but effective implementation of more equal results is far more challenging. The UK’s endemically weak social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in occupations with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can mention improved access however much they like. Yet where is the organization that has the complete plan on life chances? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equal access so badly.