🔗 Share this article

As the beleaguered Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a viable path exists at all. We are in tough times for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an priority that matters to people nationwide: Levelling up. However the previous administration did not possess the basic understanding on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into concrete action. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it debated what the term actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility meant when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the approach by which we realize fair chances – not through reducing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing options to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, but opportunity is not”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economic system. As a result, education and business were essential to achieving better life chances. This constituted an priority about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and connecting them to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

How did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A white paper was published almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in capital, commerce, economic policy, tax and in community development. Additionally, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is vital for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are linked; that if people aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is critical. Studies by the research body at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their destiny.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that took that action? The targeted programme is one example of what might have become a revolutionary Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that possibility was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Conservatives learned, breaking the promise of fair chances is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The electorate held accountable the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the mandate on social mobility and equal chances has been taken up by a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. Labour has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the failing Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an revitalized economy.

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

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, both these parties should take lessons from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in occupations with few results after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any real hope their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention equal chances repeatedly. Yet where is the political group that has the thorough strategy on life chances? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not just for themselves, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so desperately.