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While the beleaguered Conservative party meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a clear direction exists at all. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

Things could have turned out markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people across the country: Equal opportunity. Yet the previous administration hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the general election, it argued over what the phrase actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. It was our core mission, and its definition is straightforward: social mobility is the approach by which we realize equal access – without removing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending chances to those that are without.

The Core Concept

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, representing the two parts of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our market. Therefore, education and business were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the social fabric of our country – investing in human talent and providing access to opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the previous government? A towns fund administered out of the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was published almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in capital, enterprise, fiscal strategy, tax and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Maybe the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is crucial for our country to succeed. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are linked; that if people aspire, they can attain. For any government, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the future is critical. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their destiny.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a party that took that action? This specific initiative is a clear case of what had the potential to be a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the ruling party discovered, failing to deliver of fair chances is the most expensive error any political party can make. The electorate punished the government for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on levelling up.

The Current Landscape

At present the mandate on life chances and fair access has been transferred to a opposition party. The old slogan has been discarded. Labour has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the failing Tories, the challenger, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, new terminology. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the identical outcome, each group should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. The UK’s persistently low equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in occupations with few results after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about equal chances repeatedly. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not just for their party, but, crucially, for a complete society that has never needed equal access so desperately.