🔗 Share this article

While the struggling Tories convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a viable path exists at all. These are difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

Things could have turned out vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people across the country: Equal opportunity. Yet Boris Johnson’s government lacked the slightest idea on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it discussed what the concept actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility meant when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It was our departmental mantra, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the approach by which we attain equality of opportunity – not through reducing prospects away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding chances to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

The other key education department term we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, but opportunity is not”, represented another a deliberate expression, representing the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our market. Therefore, schools and companies were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an priority about the social fabric of our country – investing in human talent and linking them with prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up turn into under the previous government? A towns fund overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was released 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 ignored, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in capital, enterprise, financial planning, tax and in local regeneration. Additionally, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the only engine of social mobility, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is crucial for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are connected; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to create a feeling of hope about the years ahead is critical. Analysis by the academic institution at the university and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their future than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people perceive their prospects.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the ruling party terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those communities vote for a party that made that decision? This specific initiative is a single instance of what could have been a revolutionary administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was totally misused. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the Conservatives discovered, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any political party can make. Voters punished the administration for its incompetence but, primarily, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

At present the baton on life chances and equal chances has been transferred to a new administration. The previous terminology has been cast off. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is gradually replacing the hapless incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I was raised in, in my hometown. It promises that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an industrial future.

For voters, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Identical problem, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the similar destiny, each group should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but effective implementation of more equal results is significantly more difficult. The UK’s endemically weak life chances remains the central problem for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in occupations with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, 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 discuss fairer opportunities as much as they want. However, which party has the party that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, wins. Not just for their party, but, crucially, for a whole country that has never needed fair chances so badly.