I preached levelling up as the key to Tory success – but Boris Johnson didn’t do it. Now look at us

‘The higher education sector remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for young working-class people in Britain.’ Students sitting on the steps of the Portico and Quad at University College London. Photograph: Benjamin John/Alamy

As the existentially challenged Conservative party meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder on where it goes next. It’s not even clear if there is a road forward at all. These are tough times for a party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

It could have been so different if it had made tangible progress on an agenda that matters to people across the country: Levelling up. Yet Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into policy reality. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the term even meant.