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As the existentially challenged Conservative party gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a viable path exists at all. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. Yet the previous administration did not possess the first clue on how to convert the trendy talk on levelling up into concrete action. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up entailed when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. It served as our guiding principle, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the means by which we attain equality of opportunity – not by taking opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by providing chances to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

The other key education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, however access isn’t”, served as a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two halves of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Second, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our market. Therefore, learning and employment were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an priority about the social fabric of our country – fostering people’s potential and linking them with prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda become under the previous government? A towns fund administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was published a significant period after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, revenue and in community development. Moreover, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is vital for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are linked; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the future is critical. Research by the academic institution at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people feel about their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its new leader election, in that period, the ruling party ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those communities vote for a organization that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what could have been a transformative Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. In contrast, as the Tories discovered, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any government can make. The public punished the government for its incompetence but, above all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

At present the baton on social mobility and equality of opportunity has passed to a new administration. The previous terminology has been discarded. The new government has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the struggling Tories, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I was raised in, in the region. It suggests that an industrial past can be reborn into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the identical outcome, both these parties should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can mention fairer opportunities as much as they want. However, which party has the political group that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires fair chances so desperately.