🔗 Share this article

While the struggling Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on 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 very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that matters to people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However the previous administration hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to turn the popular slogan on social mobility into policy reality. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. This became our departmental mantra, and its purpose is unambiguous: social mobility is the approach by which we realize equality of opportunity – not by taking chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending options to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, however access isn’t”, served as a purposeful phrase, embodying the dual components of a social mobility strategy. First, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our education system. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economy. Thus, schools and companies were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an priority about the community framework of our country – fostering human talent and providing access to chances.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? Regional development money overseen from the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was published nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, commerce, economic policy, taxation and in local regeneration. Moreover, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for elected officials – even though it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the primary source of social mobility, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is essential for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For any government, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the years ahead is critical. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their prospects than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people perceive their future.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those communities vote for a organization that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what had the potential to be a game-changing administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the ruling party found out, failing to deliver of fair chances is the most expensive error any political party can make. Voters held accountable the government for its incompetence but, primarily, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the mandate on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the struggling Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in the region. It claims that an former economic strength can be reborn into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the same fate, both these parties should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in employment with few results after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any genuine belief their next generation will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss 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 equal access so urgently.