As the original author championed equal opportunity as the essential to Conservative success – but Boris Johnson neglected the agenda. Observe the consequences.

While the existentially challenged Conservative party meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a viable path is available. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that is important for people nationwide: Levelling up. Yet Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to convert the trendy talk on levelling up into concrete action. During the initial period after the general election, it argued over what the term actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our guiding principle, and its purpose is unambiguous: social mobility is the method by which we realize fair chances – without removing prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by extending options to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

Another crucial education department term we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, again was a deliberate expression, representing the two halves of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economy. As a result, schools and companies were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an priority about the societal structure of our country – fostering individual capabilities and providing access to opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

How did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund managed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was released a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, enterprise, fiscal strategy, tax and in local regeneration. Additionally, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for elected officials – although it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is essential for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For any government, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the future is critical. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their prospects than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people view their future.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its new leader election, in September 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those regions vote for a party that made that decision? This specific initiative is one example of what could have been a game-changing Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. In contrast, as the Tories learned, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the costliest mistake any government can make. The electorate penalized the administration for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Now the responsibility on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has passed to a new administration. The previous terminology has been discarded. The current administration has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is gradually replacing the struggling incumbents, the alternative party, 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 my hometown. It promises that an industrial past can revive into an industrial future.

For the public, it must feel like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, new terminology. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the identical outcome, the respective organizations should learn from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but successful delivery of more equal results is significantly more difficult. Britain’s persistently low equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in employment with minimal progress after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss equal chances however much they like. However, which party has the party that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so urgently.