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As the existentially challenged Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a viable path remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been vastly better if real advances had been made on an priority that is important for people nationwide: Equal opportunity. But Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to turn the trendy talk on levelling up into policy reality. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. This became our departmental mantra, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the method by which we achieve equality of opportunity – not through reducing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing chances to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

An additional vital education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, but opportunity is not”, served as a intentional wording, reflecting the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our education system. 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 constituted an agenda about the community framework of our country – supporting people’s potential and linking them with chances.

The Actual Outcome

How did levelling up turn into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes administered out of the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A white paper was published almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies repackaged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in capital, enterprise, financial planning, tax and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the primary source of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is essential for our country to thrive. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are connected; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For political leadership, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the years ahead is critical. Analysis by the academic institution at the university and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those areas being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their prospects than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people feel about their future.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in that period, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a organization that took that action? This specific initiative is a clear case of what could have been a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of social mobility is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The public punished the leadership for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

At present the baton on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a opposition party. The old slogan has been cast off. Labour has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I was raised in, in my hometown. It promises that an former economic strength can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the identical outcome, each group should learn from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. Britain’s chronically poor social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss fairer opportunities however much they like. But where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a complete society that has never needed equality of opportunity so urgently.