I preached equal opportunity as the key to Tory electoral victory – but Boris Johnson neglected the agenda. Now look at us.

While the existentially challenged Tories gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a viable path remains open. We are in tough times for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Levelling up. But the previous administration did not possess the basic understanding on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into actual implementation. For the two years after the general election, it argued over what the concept even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. It served as our departmental mantra, and its meaning is straightforward: social mobility is the method by which we realize equal access – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding options to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

An additional vital education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, served as a deliberate expression, reflecting the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economic system. As a result, education and business were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an priority about the societal structure of our country – investing in people’s potential and providing access to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up evolve into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was launched nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, financial planning, taxation and in place-making. Additionally, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the primary source of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is crucial for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are connected; that if people aspire, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is crucial. Research by the research body at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to students in those communities being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their future than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a party that made that decision? This specific initiative is a clear case of what might have become a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the Tories learned, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. Voters penalized the government for its failure but, primarily, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Currently the responsibility on life chances and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been cast off. Labour has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is gradually replacing the hapless incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I was raised in, in the region. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For the public, it must feel like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the same fate, both these parties should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. Our nation’s chronically poor life chances remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in occupations with minimal progress after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about equal chances however much they like. Yet where is the political group that has the complete plan on life chances? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, wins. Not only for their organization, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so badly.