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While the beleaguered Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a viable path is available. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

It could have been markedly improved if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that matters to people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. However Boris Johnson’s government lacked the slightest idea on how to turn the popular slogan on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the term actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is straightforward: social mobility is the method by which we attain fair chances – not through reducing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing opportunities to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

The other key education department term we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, yet chances are not”, represented another a deliberate expression, reflecting the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. First, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our market. Thus, schools and companies were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an mission about the social fabric of our country – supporting human talent and providing access to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

What did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money managed by the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was launched a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in investment, business, financial planning, taxation and in place-making. And, of course, in education, including a university system that has become a target for elected officials – although it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Maybe the only engine of social mobility, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Ambition is crucial for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are connected; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to instil 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 DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their future than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their prospects.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a party that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what might have become a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that possibility was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the Conservatives learned, breaking the promise of social mobility is the biggest blunder any government can make. Voters punished the administration for its failure but, primarily, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the baton on social mobility and fair access has been taken up by a opposition party. The old slogan has been discarded. The current administration has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is gradually replacing the failing Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I grew up in, in the region. It claims that an industrial past can revive into an industrial future.

For voters, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Same issue, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the similar destiny, the respective organizations should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but actual achievement of more equal results is far more challenging. The UK’s persistently low equal opportunity remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in employment with few results after the living expenses are met, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss fairer opportunities however much they like. However, which party has the organization that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a complete society that has never needed fair chances so badly.