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As the existentially challenged Tories gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. 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 so different if tangible progress had been made on an priority that resonates with people across the country: Equal opportunity. However the previous administration hadn’t got the first clue on how to turn the trendy talk on social mobility into concrete action. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it argued over what the phrase actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up entailed when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the approach by which we achieve equal access – not through reducing prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding options to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

The other key DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, again was a deliberate expression, representing the dual components of a fairness agenda. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our market. Thus, learning and employment were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an agenda about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and connecting them to prospects.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was launched almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in capital, business, fiscal strategy, taxation and in community development. Moreover, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the primary source of social mobility, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is crucial for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For any government, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is critical. Analysis by the academic institution at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their prospects than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their future.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its new leader election, in September 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a party that took that action? This specific initiative is a clear case of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that chance was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Tories found out, breaking the promise of social mobility is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The electorate held accountable the leadership for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

At present the responsibility on life chances and equal chances has been taken up by a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. The current administration has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I come from, in the region. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Same issue, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the identical outcome, both these parties should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. Our nation’s persistently low social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, those working hard in occupations with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about equal chances as much as they want. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires fair chances so badly.