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As the existentially challenged Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a viable path is available. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an priority that resonates with people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. However the former leadership did not possess the basic understanding on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the concept actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. It served as our core mission, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the means by which we attain fair chances – not through reducing opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, again was a intentional wording, representing the two halves of a fairness agenda. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our market. As a result, learning and employment were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an agenda about the social fabric of our country – fostering human talent and providing access to opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up turn into under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A white paper was released nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in investment, business, financial planning, taxation and in local regeneration. Additionally, in learning, including a university system that has become a punchbag for elected officials – even though it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for young working-class people, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is vital for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are linked; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the future is important. Studies by the academic institution at the university and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic 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 perceive their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a political group that did that? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what had the potential to be a transformative administration strategy on levelling up, but that possibility was totally misused. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the ruling party learned, breaking the promise of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The electorate held accountable the leadership for its failure but, primarily, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

Now the baton on life chances and equal chances has passed to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been cast off. The current administration has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an industrial past can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Identical problem, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the same fate, both these parties should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that fair chance language is one thing, but actual achievement of more equal results is much harder. The UK’s persistently low equal opportunity remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in occupations with little to show after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss improved access as much as they want. But where is the organization that has the thorough strategy on life chances? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for their party, but, significantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so badly.