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While the existentially challenged Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a clear direction remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an agenda that matters to people nationwide: Equal opportunity. But the previous administration lacked the slightest idea on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it debated what the term even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It served as our guiding principle, and its meaning is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we achieve fair chances – without removing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing chances to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

The other key ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, served as a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our education system. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our market. Therefore, learning and employment were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an agenda about the societal structure of our country – supporting individual capabilities and linking them with prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes administered out of the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was released nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in investment, commerce, financial planning, revenue and in community development. And, of course, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for leaders across parties – even though it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is vital for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can attain. For any government, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the tomorrow is crucial. Research by the research body at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those communities being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their future than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an sincere effort on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people feel about their prospects.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the ruling party terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a political group that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what might have become a revolutionary administration strategy on levelling up, but that possibility was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the ruling party found out, failing to deliver of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The public penalized the government for its incompetence but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Present Circumstances

Now the baton on life chances and fair access has been taken up by a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. The new government has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is increasingly displacing the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I come from, in my hometown. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an industrial future.

For the public, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the identical outcome, each group should understand the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that fair chance language is easy to say, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is much harder. Britain’s chronically poor life chances remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in employment with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss fairer opportunities repeatedly. However, which party has the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has never needed fair chances so badly.