I championed levelling up as the key to Conservative electoral victory – but Boris Johnson didn’t do it. Observe the consequences.

As the struggling Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a clear direction remains open. These are challenging circumstances for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

Things could have turned out markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. Yet Boris Johnson’s government lacked the basic understanding on how to convert the trendy talk on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it debated what the term actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up signified when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. This became our guiding principle, and its meaning is clear: social mobility is the method by which we attain equal access – not through reducing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that lack them.

Essential Principle

The other key ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, yet chances are not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, representing the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Second, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our economy. As a result, education and business were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an agenda about the societal structure of our country – investing in people’s potential and connecting them to prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

How did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? Regional development money overseen from the DLUHC. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was published a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in funding, business, fiscal strategy, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a target for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the sole mechanism of social mobility, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration 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 aspire, they can succeed. For any government, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the future is crucial. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to students in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their prospects than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an sincere effort on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people feel about their prospects.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those regions vote for a party that did that? This specific initiative is a single instance of what could have been a transformative Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the ruling party found out, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any government can make. Voters held accountable the administration for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the baton on social mobility and equality of opportunity has passed to a opposition party. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in my hometown. It promises that an industrial past can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to escape the identical outcome, the respective organizations should understand the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but actual achievement of more equal results is significantly more difficult. Britain’s chronically poor life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in occupations with little to show after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about equal chances however much they like. But where is the political group that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for themselves, but, significantly, for a whole country that has never needed fair chances so desperately.