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While the beleaguered Tories convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a clear direction is available. These are difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

Things could have turned out vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an priority that is important for people across the country: Levelling up. But the former leadership did not possess the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it discussed what the term actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our core mission, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the method by which we achieve equality of opportunity – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending chances to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, but opportunity is not”, represented another a deliberate expression, representing the two parts of a fairness agenda. First, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Second, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our economic system. Therefore, learning and employment were essential to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the community framework of our country – fostering people’s potential and providing access to opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the Tory administration? Regional development money managed by the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was launched nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in capital, business, financial planning, tax and in community development. And, of course, in schooling, including a university system that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – although it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the sole mechanism of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is crucial for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are connected; that if people aspire, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the future is critical. Studies by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their life ahead than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their future.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in that period, the ruling party ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a party that did that? The opportunity areas policy is one example of what could have been a game-changing Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the ruling party discovered, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any political party can make. Voters penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Present Circumstances

Currently the responsibility on life chances and equal chances has been transferred to a new administration. The previous terminology has been abandoned. Labour has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is increasingly displacing the struggling Tories, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I come from, in my hometown. It promises that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

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

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to escape the identical outcome, both these parties should learn from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is much harder. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in occupations with little to show after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any actual expectation their children will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about improved access repeatedly. However, which party has the political group that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires fair chances so badly.