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While the beleaguered Tories gathers in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that resonates with people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. But the former leadership lacked the slightest idea on how to turn the trendy talk on levelling up into policy reality. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility signified when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. It served as our guiding principle, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the approach by which we achieve equal access – not through reducing prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, represented another a intentional wording, embodying the two parts of a fairness agenda. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our education system. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our market. Therefore, learning and employment were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an mission about the social fabric of our country – supporting human talent and linking them with opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the previous government? Regional development money administered out of the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was launched a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in capital, commerce, fiscal strategy, tax and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a target for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is vital for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are linked; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the future is crucial. Studies by the academic institution at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those communities being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their future than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their prospects.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its new leader election, in that period, the ruling party ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those areas vote for a party that took that action? The targeted programme is one example of what had the potential to be a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Tories found out, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The public penalized the administration for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the baton on equal opportunity and fair access has passed to a new administration. The old slogan has been cast off. The new government has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is gradually replacing the hapless incumbents, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I was raised in, in the region. It suggests that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an industrial future.

For voters, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the similar destiny, each group should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but successful delivery of more equal results is significantly more difficult. The UK’s persistently low life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in employment with little to show after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their next generation will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss equal chances as much as they want. But where is the organization that has the complete plan on life chances? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has urgently needs equal access so badly.