As the original author championed equal opportunity as the key to Tory success – but Boris Johnson failed to deliver. See the current state.

As the struggling Tories convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a clear direction exists at all. These are challenging circumstances for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

It could have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that matters to people across the country: Levelling up. Yet Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the first clue on how to convert the popular slogan on levelling up into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. This became our departmental mantra, and its purpose is straightforward: levelling up is the means by which we realize equality of opportunity – without removing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending opportunities to those that are without.

The Core Concept

The other key ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, however access isn’t”, represented another a deliberate expression, representing the two halves of a fairness agenda. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an agenda about the social fabric of our country – investing in individual capabilities and providing access to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up evolve into under the previous government? Local investment schemes administered out of the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A white paper was published nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in funding, business, fiscal strategy, tax and in local regeneration. And, of course, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for elected officials – even though it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is essential 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 aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the future is crucial. Research by the research body at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more positive about their prospects than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people perceive their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in that period, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those regions vote for a organization that took that action? The targeted programme is a clear case of what had the potential to be a game-changing Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the Conservatives found out, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the most expensive error any leadership can make. Voters punished the leadership for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

At present the mandate on life chances and fair access has passed to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. The new government has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is gradually replacing the struggling 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 promises that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an industrial future.

For the public, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, different language. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, each group should understand the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but successful delivery of more equal results is much harder. Britain’s chronically poor life chances 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 little to show after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any real hope their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Politicians can mention equal chances as much as they want. But where is the political group that has the complete plan on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not only for themselves, but, significantly, for a complete society that has never needed fair chances so desperately.