🔗 Share this article

As the existentially challenged Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a clear direction is available. These are tough times for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out vastly better if real advances had been made on an agenda that is important for people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. But Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the basic understanding on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up meant when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. It was our core mission, and its definition is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we realize equal access – not through reducing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by extending options to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital education department term we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, however access isn’t”, again was a purposeful phrase, embodying the two parts of a fairness agenda. Initially, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our education system. Furthermore, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our market. Thus, schools and companies were crucial to achieving better life chances. This represented an mission about the social fabric of our country – investing in individual capabilities and providing access to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

How did the social mobility agenda become under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was published a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in investment, enterprise, fiscal strategy, tax and in place-making. Moreover, in education, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for leaders across parties – even though it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the primary source of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is vital for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are connected; that if people aim high, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is crucial. Research by the research body at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their destiny.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the ruling party terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a political group that took that action? This specific initiative is a single instance of what had the potential to be a transformative administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. In contrast, as the ruling party discovered, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the most expensive error any political party can make. The public held accountable the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Now the mandate on social mobility and fair access has passed to a new administration. The old slogan has been cast off. The current administration has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the failing Tories, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I was raised in, in the region. It suggests that an industrial past can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For the public, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the similar destiny, both these parties should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. Our nation’s chronically poor social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. However, which party has the political group that has the complete plan on life chances? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not just for their organization, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has never needed equal access so urgently.