🔗 Share this article

As the struggling Tories convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a road forward remains open. We are in tough times for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people nationwide: Levelling up. But the former leadership did not possess the basic understanding on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it discussed what the concept actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what social mobility entailed when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was language I created and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our departmental mantra, and its definition is straightforward: social mobility is the means by which we achieve equal access – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding options to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

An additional vital education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, yet chances are not”, served as a deliberate expression, representing the dual components of a social mobility strategy. Initially, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our market. As a result, learning and employment were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the community framework of our country – supporting people’s potential and connecting them to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the previous government? Local investment schemes managed by the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was published nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, commerce, economic policy, taxation and in local regeneration. Additionally, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the only engine of fair chances, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is crucial for our country to thrive. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are linked; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For any government, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the future is critical. Analysis by the research body at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I launched while in office – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to young people in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people perceive their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its new leader election, in that period, the ruling party terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those communities vote for a organization that took that action? The targeted programme is a single instance of what had the potential to be a game-changing Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the Tories found out, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the biggest blunder any government can make. Voters held accountable the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the responsibility on life chances and equal chances has been taken up by a opposition party. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is gradually replacing the failing Tories, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

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

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the identical outcome, both these parties should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but actual achievement of more equal results is much harder. Britain’s endemically weak life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in occupations 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 improve in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss equal chances as much as they want. However, which party has the political group that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not only for their party, but, crucially, for a complete society that has urgently needs equal access so urgently.