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While the existentially challenged Conservative party meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a road forward exists at all. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an priority that matters to people nationwide: Social mobility. However Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into actual implementation. For the two years after the general election, it discussed what the term actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our departmental mantra, and its definition is unambiguous: levelling up is the means by which we achieve equal access – without removing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending options to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, however access isn’t”, represented another a deliberate expression, embodying the two parts of a social mobility strategy. First, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our market. As a result, education and business were crucial to achieving better life chances. This constituted an agenda about the societal structure of our country – supporting individual capabilities and linking them with chances.

The Actual Outcome

What did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money managed by the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was released almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in capital, commerce, economic policy, tax and in community development. Additionally, in schooling, including a university system that has become a punchbag for elected officials – although it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the primary source of fair chances, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is vital for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are related; that if people dream big, they can attain. For any government, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the future is important. Research by the research body at the university and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to a significant margin more positive about their future than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people view their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those areas vote for a political group 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 possibility was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of fair chances is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. Voters penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

At present the responsibility on life chances and fair access has been taken up by a Labour government. The previous terminology has been cast off. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is gradually replacing the hapless Tories, the alternative party, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an revitalized economy.

For voters, it must feel like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the similar destiny, the respective organizations should understand the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. Britain’s endemically weak social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in full-time jobs with little to show after the living expenses are met, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. Yet where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, crucially, for a complete society that has urgently needs equal access so urgently.