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As the beleaguered Conservative party gathers in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a viable path is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

It could have been so different if real advances had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people nationwide: Social mobility. However the previous administration did not possess the basic understanding on how to transform the popular slogan on social mobility into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it debated what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility 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 life chances. It was our core mission, and its meaning is clear: levelling up is the means by which we realize equal access – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding chances to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

The other key education department term we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, but opportunity is not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, embodying the two parts of a fairness agenda. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economy. As a result, learning and employment were crucial to achieving better life chances. This constituted an priority about the social fabric of our country – investing in people’s potential and providing access to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up become under the Tory administration? A towns fund administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was launched nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in capital, commerce, financial planning, revenue and in community development. Additionally, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a target for elected officials – even though it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is crucial for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are related; that if people aim high, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is important. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people perceive their future.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its new leader election, in September 2022, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those communities vote for a political group that did that? This specific initiative is a single instance of what might have become a revolutionary administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the Conservatives found out, failing to deliver of social mobility is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The electorate penalized the administration for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Currently the baton on social mobility and fair access has passed to a new administration. The old slogan has been cast off. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is gradually replacing the struggling Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I come from, in the region. It suggests that an former economic strength can revive into an revitalized economy.

For the public, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Same issue, different language. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the similar destiny, each group should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. The UK’s persistently low social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in full-time jobs with little to show after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention equal chances as much as they want. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so desperately.