🔗 Share this article

As the existentially challenged Conservative party gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. We are in tough times for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an agenda that is important for people across the country: Equal opportunity. Yet the previous administration lacked the first clue on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into policy reality. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it discussed what the term actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up entailed when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It was our guiding principle, and its meaning is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we attain equality of opportunity – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

An additional vital education department term we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, but opportunity is not”, served as a intentional wording, embodying the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our education system. Second, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our market. Thus, schools and companies were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an agenda about the community framework of our country – fostering individual capabilities and linking them with chances.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was published nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, taxation and in place-making. Additionally, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is essential for our country to thrive. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the future is crucial. Analysis by the research body at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to young people in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their life ahead than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people perceive their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a organization that took that action? The targeted programme is a single instance of what had the potential to be a revolutionary administration strategy on social mobility, but that chance was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the ruling party discovered, failing to deliver of social mobility is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The electorate penalized the administration for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the baton on equal opportunity and equal chances has passed to a new administration. The previous terminology has been abandoned. The current administration has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is gradually replacing the hapless incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I grew up in, in the region. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

For the public, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Same issue, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the identical outcome, the respective organizations should learn from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is much harder. Our nation’s persistently low life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, 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 actual expectation their children will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can mention equal chances repeatedly. But where is the party that has the complete plan on life chances? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.