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As the existentially challenged Conservative party meets in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a clear direction remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an priority that resonates with people nationwide: Social mobility. However Boris Johnson’s government lacked the first clue on how to transform the popular slogan on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility meant when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. This became our departmental mantra, and its purpose is clear: levelling up is the approach by which we realize equality of opportunity – without removing opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by providing chances to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

Another crucial education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, but opportunity is not”, again was a deliberate expression, representing the two parts of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economic system. Thus, learning and employment were crucial to achieving better life chances. This constituted an agenda about the societal structure of our country – fostering individual capabilities and connecting them to prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

How did the social mobility agenda turn into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was published a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, tax and in place-making. And, of course, in learning, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the primary source of social mobility, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is vital for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are related; that if people aspire, they can attain. For any government, being able to create a feeling of hope about the years ahead is critical. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their future than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their future.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its new leader election, in that period, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those regions vote for a party that did that? The targeted programme is one example of what could have been a game-changing administration strategy on social mobility, but that possibility was totally misused. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Conservatives discovered, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The electorate penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the mandate on equal opportunity and equal chances has passed to a Labour government. The old slogan has been discarded. Labour has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Same issue, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the similar destiny, both these parties should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. The UK’s persistently low equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention improved access however much they like. Yet where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? I see none. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not only for themselves, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so desperately.