As the original author advocated for social mobility as the key to Tory electoral victory – but the former Prime Minister failed to deliver. Now look at us.

As the existentially challenged Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a road forward exists at all. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an priority that is important for people nationwide: Social mobility. However Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the basic understanding on how to convert the popular slogan on levelling up into actual implementation. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it debated what the phrase truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility meant when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. This became our guiding principle, and its definition is straightforward: social mobility is the approach by which we attain equal access – not by taking chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending opportunities to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly across our country, but opportunity is not”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the dual components of a fairness agenda. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Second, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our economy. As a result, learning and employment were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an mission about the social fabric of our country – supporting individual capabilities and providing access to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money overseen from the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was launched almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in capital, commerce, economic policy, tax and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for leaders across parties – even though it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the sole mechanism of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is vital for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the future is critical. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their prospects than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their future.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in that period, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a party that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is a single instance of what might have become a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Conservatives discovered, breaking the promise of social mobility is the costliest mistake any political party can make. Voters punished the administration for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the responsibility on life chances and fair access has passed to a opposition party. The old slogan has been abandoned. The new government has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is steadily supplanting the struggling Tories, the alternative party, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can be reborn into an revitalized economy.

To the electorate, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Same issue, different language. However, so far, no progress.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the similar destiny, each group should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is much harder. The UK’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in employment with minimal progress after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about equal chances however much they like. Yet where is the political group that has the complete plan on life chances? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for their party, but, crucially, for a whole country that has never needed fair chances so badly.