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As the struggling Tories gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a road forward exists at all. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out so different if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that resonates with people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However the previous administration did not possess the first clue on how to turn the popular slogan on levelling up into policy reality. For the two years after the general election, it argued over what the term even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It was our core mission, and its definition is clear: levelling up is the means by which we attain fair chances – not through reducing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending chances to those that are without.

Essential Principle

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, but opportunity is not”, again was a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two halves of a fairness agenda. First, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economy. Thus, learning and employment were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an agenda about the societal structure of our country – fostering people’s potential and connecting them to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up become under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was published nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in funding, business, financial planning, revenue and in community development. Moreover, in education, including a university system that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – although it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the sole mechanism of social mobility, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is essential for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are linked; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is critical. Research by the academic institution at the university and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more positive about their future than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a political group that made that decision? The targeted programme is one example of what could have been a revolutionary administration strategy on social mobility, but that possibility was totally misused. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives discovered, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. Voters penalized the government for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Now the baton on social mobility and equal chances has passed to a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. Labour has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is increasingly displacing the failing Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I come from, in my hometown. It suggests that an former economic strength can revive into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Same issue, new terminology. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the identical outcome, both these parties should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is much harder. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in full-time jobs with little to show after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their next generation will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss fairer opportunities however much they like. However, which party has the party that has the complete plan on life chances? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not just for their party, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has desperately requires fair chances so badly.