I advocated for social mobility as the essential to Conservative success – but the former Prime Minister didn’t do it. See the current state.

As the existentially challenged Tories gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a road forward remains open. These are challenging circumstances for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that matters to people nationwide: Social mobility. Yet the former leadership lacked the slightest idea on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. During the initial period after the general election, it debated what the term truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up entailed when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It was our departmental mantra, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the method by which we achieve equality of opportunity – without removing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending chances to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

An additional vital education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, however access isn’t”, again was a deliberate expression, representing the two parts of a social mobility strategy. First, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our market. Thus, learning and employment were crucial to achieving better life chances. This was an agenda about the social fabric of our country – fostering individual capabilities and providing access to prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? A towns fund administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was released almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw current strategies rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in capital, business, fiscal strategy, tax and in place-making. Additionally, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for elected officials – even though it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the primary source of social mobility, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is crucial 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 aim high, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to create a sense of optimism about the future is important. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more positive about their future than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people view their future.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a party that took that action? This specific initiative is a single instance of what could have been a transformative Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the ruling party discovered, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any government can make. The public penalized the leadership for its failure but, above all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the baton on life chances and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I come from, in my hometown. It promises that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the same fate, the respective organizations should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but actual achievement of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in employment with few results after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention improved access as much as they want. But where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for their organization, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has never needed equal access so urgently.