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As the existentially challenged Conservative party meets 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 viable path exists at all. These are tough times for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been so different if real advances had been made on an priority that matters to people nationwide: Social mobility. However the previous administration lacked the slightest idea on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the phrase even meant.

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 social mobility. It served as our departmental mantra, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the means by which we attain equal access – without removing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

The other key DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, but opportunity is not”, represented another a intentional wording, embodying the dual components of a fairness agenda. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our education system. Second, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economic system. Therefore, learning and employment were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an mission about the social fabric of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up evolve into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes administered out of the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was released almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in capital, business, financial planning, tax and in local regeneration. Additionally, in learning, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – even though it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for young working-class people, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the only engine of fair chances, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is crucial for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are linked; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the years ahead is critical. Research by the research body at the university and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people feel about their future.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its new leader election, in that period, the ruling party ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those areas vote for a political group that made that decision? The targeted programme is a single instance of what could have been a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that possibility was totally misused. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the Conservatives discovered, breaking the promise of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The electorate punished the government for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the baton on social mobility and equal chances has been taken up by a Labour government. The previous terminology has been cast off. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is increasingly displacing the struggling Tories, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I grew up in, in the region. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the similar destiny, the respective organizations should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but actual achievement of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. The UK’s persistently low life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about fairer opportunities as much as they want. But where is the political group that has the complete plan on life chances? I see none. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs fair chances so desperately.