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While the beleaguered Tories convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a viable path is available. These are tough times for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

It could have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that matters to people throughout the UK: Levelling up. Yet the previous administration lacked the basic understanding on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the term even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. This became our departmental mantra, and its meaning is straightforward: levelling up is the means by which we attain fair chances – not by taking opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by extending chances to those that are without.

The Core Concept

The other key DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, served as a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. First, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Second, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economy. Thus, learning and employment were essential to achieving better life chances. This constituted an agenda about the community framework of our country – supporting human talent and connecting them to prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up become under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund overseen from the DLUHC. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was launched almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in investment, enterprise, financial planning, taxation and in local regeneration. And, of course, in education, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the only engine of fair chances, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is vital for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are linked; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For any government, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the years ahead is critical. Analysis by the academic institution at the university and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their future.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a party that took that action? The targeted programme is one example of what could have been a game-changing administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the ruling party found out, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The public punished the leadership for its failure but, primarily, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the mandate on equal opportunity and fair access has been taken up by a opposition party. The old slogan has been cast off. Labour has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is gradually replacing the struggling Tories, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. This expression to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can be reborn into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the same fate, both these parties should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that fair chance language is one thing, but effective implementation of more equal results is significantly more difficult. The UK’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in full-time jobs with little to show after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can mention equal chances as much as they want. However, which party has the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a complete society that has never needed equality of opportunity so desperately.