🔗 Share this article

As the struggling Conservative party meets in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a viable path is available. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an agenda that resonates with people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. But the previous administration lacked the slightest idea on how to convert the popular slogan on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the 2019 election, it discussed what the concept actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what social mobility meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our departmental mantra, and its purpose is clear: levelling up is the means by which we achieve equal access – not through reducing prospects away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding options to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, however access isn’t”, represented another a intentional wording, embodying the two halves of a social mobility strategy. Initially, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economic system. Therefore, schools and companies were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an agenda about the social fabric of our country – investing in individual capabilities and providing access to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up become under the Tory administration? A towns fund overseen from the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was published nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in investment, enterprise, financial planning, revenue and in local regeneration. Additionally, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is essential for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are linked; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For any government, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the years ahead is critical. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to students in those communities being up to a significant margin more positive about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people view their prospects.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that made that decision? This specific initiative is one example of what might have become a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that chance was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the Tories discovered, breaking the promise of social mobility is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. Voters punished the government for its incompetence but, primarily, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Now the baton on equal opportunity and equal chances has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been abandoned. The new government has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is gradually replacing the hapless Tories, the challenger, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I come from, in my hometown. It promises that an former economic strength can be reborn into an industrial future.

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

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the similar destiny, each group should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that fair chance language is one thing, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. 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 working hard in occupations with few results after the living expenses are met, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about equal chances repeatedly. Yet where is the political group that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a complete society that has desperately requires equal access so desperately.