As the original author championed equal opportunity as the essential to Conservative electoral victory – but the former Prime Minister failed to deliver. Now look at us.

As the struggling Conservative party meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a road forward is available. These are tough times for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

Things could have turned out markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However Boris Johnson’s government lacked the slightest idea on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the general election, it argued over what the concept truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. This became our guiding principle, and its purpose is clear: social mobility is the method by which we attain equality of opportunity – not through reducing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, again was a intentional wording, reflecting the two parts of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Second, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our market. Therefore, schools and companies were key to achieving better life chances. This was an priority about the community framework of our country – supporting people’s potential and connecting them to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up evolve into under the previous government? Local investment schemes managed by the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was launched nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in funding, business, economic policy, taxation and in community development. Moreover, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the only engine of social mobility, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is crucial for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are related; that if people dream big, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is critical. Studies by the research body at the university and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their prospects.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its new leader election, in that period, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a organization that made that decision? The targeted programme is a single instance of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that chance was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of social mobility is the costliest mistake any government can make. Voters punished the government for its failure but, above all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Now the responsibility on social mobility and fair access has passed to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been discarded. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is increasingly displacing the struggling Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an former economic strength can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Same issue, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the identical outcome, both these parties should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in full-time jobs with little to show after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians 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 just for their party, but, crucially, for a complete society that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so urgently.