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While the existentially challenged Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a viable path remains open. These are difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been markedly improved if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that is important for people nationwide: Equal opportunity. Yet the previous administration hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to turn the trendy talk on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the phrase actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its meaning is straightforward: levelling up is the approach by which we attain equality of opportunity – not through reducing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding options to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

Another crucial education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, served as a intentional wording, embodying the two parts of a fairness agenda. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economy. Therefore, education and business were key to achieving better life chances. This was an agenda about the community framework of our country – supporting human talent and providing access to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

What did the social mobility agenda turn into under the Tory administration? A towns fund overseen from the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was published a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, fiscal strategy, revenue and in local regeneration. Additionally, in schooling, including a university system that has become a target for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the sole mechanism of social mobility, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is essential for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are related; that if people aspire, they can attain. For any government, being able to create a feeling of hope about the future is crucial. Analysis by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to students in those areas being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their prospects than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an sincere effort on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people feel about their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those communities vote for a organization that took that action? This specific initiative is a single instance of what might have become a transformative Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the ruling party learned, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any government can make. The electorate penalized the government for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the mandate on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a new administration. The previous terminology has been abandoned. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is increasingly displacing the struggling Tories, the alternative party, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I come from, in my hometown. It suggests that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the identical outcome, the respective organizations should understand the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but actual achievement of more equal results is significantly more difficult. The UK’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in occupations with little to show after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention fairer opportunities as much as they want. But where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for their organization, but, crucially, for a whole country that has urgently needs fair chances so badly.