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While the existentially challenged Tories convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a road forward is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

Things could have turned out so different if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that is important for people nationwide: Social mobility. But the previous administration did not possess the basic understanding on how to turn the popular slogan on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the term truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up meant when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It was our departmental mantra, and its meaning is clear: social mobility is the approach by which we realize equal access – without removing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, represented another a deliberate expression, embodying the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our education system. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our market. Therefore, education and business were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an mission about the societal structure of our country – fostering individual capabilities and connecting them to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up turn into under the previous government? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was published nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies repackaged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in capital, enterprise, financial planning, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is essential for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the future is important. Analysis by the academic institution at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those areas being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its new leader election, in that period, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a organization that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what had the potential to be a game-changing Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the Tories discovered, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the most expensive error any leadership can make. Voters penalized the leadership for its incompetence but, above all, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

At present the mandate on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a opposition party. The previous terminology has been discarded. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is increasingly displacing the hapless Tories, the challenger, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I come from, in the region. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an industrial future.

For the public, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the identical outcome, both these parties should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Britain’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about equal chances as much as they want. However, which party has the party that has the complete plan on social mobility? None appear to exist. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not just for their organization, but, significantly, for a whole country that has never needed equality of opportunity so urgently.