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While the struggling Tories convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. There is uncertainty if a clear direction exists at all. These are challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that matters to people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. Yet the previous administration hadn’t got the first clue on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. During the initial period after the general election, it debated what the phrase actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility meant when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It was our guiding principle, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the means by which we attain fair chances – not through reducing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing chances to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

The other key ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, however access isn’t”, served as a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Second, access not provided uniformly by employers or our market. Therefore, education and business were essential to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the social fabric of our country – investing in human talent and connecting them to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up become under the previous government? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was released a significant period after the leadership change, which saw current strategies repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in capital, enterprise, financial planning, revenue and in community development. And, of course, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the sole mechanism of fair chances, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is vital for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are related; that if people aim high, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the tomorrow is crucial. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people feel about their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those communities vote for a party that did that? This specific initiative is a single instance of what could have been a transformative Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that chance was totally misused. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives found out, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the most expensive error any government can make. Voters penalized the administration for its incompetence but, primarily, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

Now the mandate on life chances and equal chances has been taken up by a Labour government. The previous terminology has been cast off. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is gradually replacing the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I come from, in the region. It promises that an former economic strength can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

To the electorate, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the identical outcome, both these parties should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in occupations with little to show after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention improved access however much they like. Yet where is the party that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a whole country that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so badly.