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As the beleaguered Conservative party meets in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a clear direction exists at all. These are difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Levelling up. But the former leadership hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to convert the trendy talk on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the general election, it debated what the term even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up signified when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. This became our core mission, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the approach by which we attain equality of opportunity – without removing opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by providing options to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital education department term we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, yet chances are not”, served as a deliberate expression, reflecting the two parts of a equal opportunity plan. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our economy. Therefore, education and business were crucial to achieving better life chances. This was an priority about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and providing access to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up evolve into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes administered out of the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was launched almost thirty-six months after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, enterprise, fiscal strategy, revenue and in place-making. Additionally, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the sole mechanism of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is essential for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are connected; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the years ahead is critical. Analysis by the academic institution at the university and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to students in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people feel about their prospects.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in that period, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a party that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what had the potential to be a game-changing administration strategy on levelling up, but that chance was totally misused. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the ruling party learned, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. Voters held accountable the government for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the responsibility on equal opportunity and equal chances has passed to a new administration. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can revive into an revitalized economy.

To the electorate, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, each group should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s endemically weak life chances remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in full-time jobs 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 any better in life than they have.

Leaders can mention equal chances however much they like. But where is the political group that has the complete plan on life chances? None appear to exist. The first to achieve this, wins. Not just for their party, but, crucially, for a entire nation that has urgently needs fair chances so urgently.