I preached equal opportunity as the critical to Conservative success – but Boris Johnson didn’t do it. Observe the consequences.

While the existentially challenged Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a road forward exists at all. We are in tough times 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 concrete steps had been made on an agenda that is important for people nationwide: Social mobility. But the former leadership lacked the first clue on how to turn the popular slogan on levelling up into actual implementation. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility meant when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It was our guiding principle, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the means by which we realize equality of opportunity – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending options to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

The other key ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, again was a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our market. Therefore, learning and employment were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an agenda about the societal structure of our country – fostering human talent and providing access to chances.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda become under the Tory administration? Regional development money administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was published almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, fiscal strategy, taxation and in place-making. Moreover, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a target for elected officials – although it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the primary source of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is crucial for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are linked; that if people aspire, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is critical. Analysis by the research body at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to students in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more positive about their future than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that took that action? The targeted programme is one example of what might have become a game-changing Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Conservatives learned, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the most expensive error any leadership can make. The electorate held accountable the government for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

At present the baton on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been cast off. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the struggling Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

For the public, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the similar destiny, the respective organizations should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is much harder. The UK’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with few results after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss improved access however much they like. Yet where is the party that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for their party, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has desperately requires fair chances so badly.