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As the existentially challenged Conservative party meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a road forward remains open. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that resonates with people nationwide: Levelling up. However Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to convert the trendy talk on levelling up into concrete action. During the initial period after the general election, it debated what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up signified when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. This became our core mission, and its purpose is unambiguous: levelling up is the approach 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.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, however access isn’t”, represented another a purposeful phrase, representing the dual components of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were crucial to achieving better life chances. This constituted an priority about the community framework of our country – supporting human talent and linking them with opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

What did the social mobility agenda turn into under the Tory administration? Regional development money administered out of the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was published a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in capital, enterprise, economic policy, revenue and in place-making. Additionally, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for elected officials – even though it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the sole mechanism of fair chances, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is essential for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the years ahead is important. Studies by the research body at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – 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 comparable communities without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their destiny.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in that period, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those communities vote for a organization that took that action? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives learned, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any political party can make. The electorate held accountable the leadership for its incompetence but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the baton on social mobility and equality of opportunity has passed to a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. The current administration has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is gradually replacing the hapless Tories, the alternative party, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I come from, in my hometown. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the same fate, the respective organizations should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is far more challenging. Our nation’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any real hope their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. However, which party has the political group that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I see none. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs equal access so badly.