🔗 Share this article

As the beleaguered Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a road forward exists at all. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an agenda that matters to people nationwide: Levelling up. But the previous administration hadn’t got the first clue on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it debated what the term truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility signified when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our core mission, and its purpose is clear: levelling up is the method by which we achieve equality of opportunity – not through reducing prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, yet chances are not”, again was a deliberate expression, embodying the two parts of a social mobility strategy. Initially, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Second, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our market. Thus, learning and employment were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an priority about the community framework of our country – supporting individual capabilities and linking them with opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? A towns fund managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was published a significant period after the leadership change, which saw current strategies rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in investment, commerce, financial planning, revenue and in place-making. And, of course, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the only engine of social mobility, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is crucial for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to create a feeling of hope 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 launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to a significant margin more positive about their life ahead than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people feel about their prospects.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the ruling party terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a political group that took that action? The targeted programme is a single instance of what might have become a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Conservatives discovered, breaking the promise of social mobility is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The electorate penalized the administration for its failure but, primarily, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

At present the responsibility on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has passed to a Labour government. The old slogan has been discarded. The current administration has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is gradually replacing the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I grew up in, in the region. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the same fate, the respective organizations should learn from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s persistently low social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in employment with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about improved access however much they like. However, which party has the organization that has the thorough strategy on life chances? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not just for their party, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has never needed equal access so desperately.