🔗 Share this article

As the struggling Tories convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a road forward exists at all. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an priority that is important for people nationwide: Equal opportunity. However the previous administration lacked the slightest idea on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the term actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what social mobility signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we achieve fair chances – without removing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, represented another a deliberate expression, embodying the two halves of a fairness agenda. To begin with, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Second, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our market. Thus, learning and employment were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an priority about the community framework of our country – fostering human talent and providing access to prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes overseen from the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was published a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in investment, business, financial planning, revenue and in place-making. Additionally, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for elected officials – although it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Maybe the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is crucial for our country to thrive. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are linked; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For any government, being able to create a feeling of hope about the future is critical. Analysis by the academic institution at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their future than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people view their future.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its new leader election, in that period, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a organization that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of fair chances is the costliest mistake any government can make. The electorate held accountable the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the mandate on social mobility and fair access has been taken up by a Labour government. The old slogan has been cast off. The current administration has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the struggling Tories, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an industrial future.

For voters, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Same issue, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the similar destiny, the respective organizations should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in occupations with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any real hope their next generation will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss fairer opportunities however much they like. But where is the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not only for themselves, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires fair chances so desperately.