🔗 Share this article

As the struggling Conservative party gathers in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a clear direction exists at all. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that is important for people across the country: Equal opportunity. Yet the former leadership hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to transform the trendy talk on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it argued over what the term even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up entailed when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. It served as our core mission, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the approach by which we attain equality of opportunity – not through reducing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

The other key DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, but opportunity is not”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the dual components of a fairness agenda. First, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economic system. As a result, education and business were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an mission about the social fabric of our country – investing in individual capabilities and linking them with chances.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda become under the previous government? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was released almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, tax and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – although it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the sole mechanism of fair chances, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is essential for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are related; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to create a sense of optimism about the future is crucial. Analysis by the research body at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” 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 future than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their future.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a party that did that? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what could have been a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Conservatives discovered, breaking the promise of social mobility is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. Voters punished the administration for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has been taken up by a opposition party. The previous terminology has been abandoned. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the hapless incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I was raised in, in the region. It claims that an industrial past can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For the public, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the identical outcome, each group should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is far more challenging. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with little to show after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about improved access however much they like. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on life chances? I see none. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not just for their organization, but, significantly, for a complete society that has urgently needs equal access so badly.