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As the existentially challenged Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a clear direction remains open. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out vastly better if real advances had been made on an agenda that matters to people across the country: Equal opportunity. Yet the former leadership lacked the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into policy reality. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the phrase even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up meant when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. This became our departmental mantra, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the method by which we achieve fair chances – not by taking opportunity away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, but opportunity is not”, represented another a deliberate expression, reflecting the two halves of a social mobility strategy. Initially, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our economy. As a result, learning and employment were key to achieving better life chances. This constituted an mission about the social fabric of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund administered out of the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was launched a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, enterprise, financial planning, tax and in local regeneration. And, of course, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – although it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the only engine of social mobility, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is crucial for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are related; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the years ahead is crucial. Analysis by the research body at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their prospects than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its new leader election, in that period, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that did that? The targeted programme is a single instance of what could have been a revolutionary administration strategy on levelling up, but that chance was totally misused. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. In contrast, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any political party can make. The electorate penalized the leadership for its incompetence but, primarily, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the baton on social mobility and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been discarded. Labour has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is increasingly displacing the failing incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I grew up in, in the region. It promises that an former economic strength can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, each group should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is much harder. Our nation’s endemically weak social mobility 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 little to show after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can mention equal chances repeatedly. Yet where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? I see none. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has never needed fair chances so badly.