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As the beleaguered Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a clear direction remains open. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been so different if real advances had been made on an policy focus that matters to people nationwide: Levelling up. But Boris Johnson’s government lacked the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it discussed what the term truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up meant when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. It served as our guiding principle, and its purpose is straightforward: levelling up is the means by which we attain equal access – without removing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing chances to those that are without.

The Core Concept

The other key education department term we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, yet chances are not”, again was a purposeful phrase, embodying the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. First, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Second, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the community framework of our country – fostering individual capabilities and providing access to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up become under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was released a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, financial planning, tax and in local regeneration. Moreover, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a target for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the primary source of social mobility, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is vital 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 create a outlook of positivity about the years ahead is critical. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people feel about their destiny.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its new leader election, in September 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those communities vote for a organization that did that? This specific initiative is a single instance of what had the potential to be a game-changing Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that possibility was totally misused. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Tories found out, breaking the promise of social mobility is the costliest mistake any government can make. Voters punished the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Now the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has passed to a Labour government. The old slogan has been discarded. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is gradually replacing the hapless Tories, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in my hometown. It promises that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the same fate, both these parties should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that fair chance language is one thing, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is far more challenging. Our nation’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in employment with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their children will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about improved access as much as they want. However, which party has the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has never needed equal access so badly.