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While the beleaguered Tories convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a viable path remains open. These are challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out so different if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that matters to people across the country: Social mobility. Yet Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the slightest idea on how to transform the popular slogan on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it argued over what the concept truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility signified when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. It was our departmental mantra, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the method by which we attain equality of opportunity – not through reducing prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by extending chances to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, again was a purposeful phrase, embodying the two parts of a social mobility strategy. First, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Furthermore, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our economic system. Thus, schools and companies were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an priority about the community framework of our country – supporting individual capabilities and linking them with chances.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up turn into under the previous government? A towns fund administered out of the DLUHC. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was launched almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in capital, commerce, financial planning, tax and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a university system that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is essential for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are related; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For any government, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the future is crucial. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their prospects than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning 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 new leader election, in that period, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a organization that made that decision? This specific initiative is one example of what had the potential to be a game-changing Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the ruling party discovered, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any government can make. The electorate held accountable the government for its incompetence but, primarily, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the responsibility on equal opportunity and equal chances has been taken up by a new administration. The previous terminology has been abandoned. Labour has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is gradually replacing the failing incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It claims that an industrial past can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

For the public, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

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 one thing, but actual achievement of improved opportunities is much harder. Britain’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in occupations with few results after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss improved access repeatedly. Yet where is the party that has the thorough strategy on life chances? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a complete society that has desperately requires fair chances so urgently.