The writer, editor -in -chief of FT, is Director General of the Royal Society of Arts and former chief economist of the Bank of England
Imagine that it is June 2029 and we are on the eve of a general election. . .
It is clear that the decisive moment for the British government came in 2025. Discontent simmering about stagnant living standards had boiled in a second successive summer of riots. Acting in action, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer launched the Lifting Lives (LL) program.
Its objective was to transform opportunities for young people, in particular those from poor horizons. Echoing the words of Robert F Kennedy in 1968, Starmer said: “The youth of our nation is the clearest mirror of our performance. Today, for many, this mirror is cracked. The government will be judged by the way we give it, raising the lives and aspirations of each young person in the United Kingdom. ”
Poverty is a punitive tax on aspiration. In 2025, children’s poverty in the United Kingdom was to go from 4.5 million to 5 minutes. By removing the service ceiling for two children and in the restaurant in the 1,400 safe departure centers since 2010, children’s poverty has since started to decrease, reducing financial obstacles to aspiration. But these obstacles are not only financial – they are digital, health, labor and community. These were also discussed on a large scale and at the source.
In 2025, around 40% of young people did not have access to broadband and a computer at home. As part of the LL program, a coalition of technological companies has agreed to provide each school in the United Kingdom to each school and at each child with a computer, wide-band access and AI personal tutor, with costs partly deductible compared to the digital services tax. During a stroke, digital exclusion for children was erased.
Digital tutoring was based on “Khanmigo”, a tool powered by AI developed by the Khan Academy. Since its introduction, this has achieved its 2025 objective to improve academic performance at levels similar to human tutoring, but to a fraction of the cost. Personalized learning has benefited those who have the most complex educational needs, in particular by neurodivers and in low performance children, by narrowing the obstinately wide widely wide difference in the United Kingdom.
In 2025, mental health problems afflicted one in five young people, but less from one in 10 state secondary school had a nurse. The LL program provided an internal clinician to each school, offering programs funded by the preventive health budget in everything, to eat well in anxiety, in addition to the treatment of mental and physical health problems. Spiral mental health problems in school -aged children are falling now.
In 2025, the training and work education bridge was, for many, broken: 1mn young people were neither in employment nor in training. These problems have been implemented at school, where the financing of the career councils had dropped two -thirds since 2010. This was then aggravated by limited professional routes, in particular for those who have low or not qualifications – funding for additional teaching colleges having dropped by more than 10% and numbers of apprentices over a quarter for 2010.
As part of the LL program, the financing of school career consulting services was restored at 2010 levels in each school, local businesses offering a structured program for volunteers, conferences and work experience for 14 to 18 year olds. To provide a clear route to technical work, a technical baccalaureate (TBACC) was introduced into all 14 -year -old schools, modeled by the MBACC was developed in Manchester.
To strengthen the post-school tracks for employment, each young person at 18 was guaranteed, either a diploma, a diploma-learned or an apprentice. To ensure that the company has actively participated in the last two programs, the LL program offered tax credits to participating companies, as well as additional funding for colleges and universities offering satisfactory courses on local commercial demand, co -funded by companies.
These initiatives caused a reconfiguration of post-18 education. Innovative models have emerged offering a mixture of techniques and interpersonal, alongside academic skills and corresponded to local employment needs. While Blackpool and the Fylde College and the University of NMITE in Hereford were early examples, diploma learning quickly became the norm and universities of yesterday become the “multi -room multi -room”.
The way towards social mobility is often outside education and work. Research has revealed that community and leisure activities are the best way to establish social connections and go to accelerated social mobility in the United Kingdom. But the number of youngest clubs, leisure centers, football fields and libraries across the United Kingdom had fallen by the thousands between 2010 and 2025, especially in poorer places.
The LL program has since reversed these trends. Since 2025, each of the 134 teams in the English and Scottish football leagues has sponsored a youth club in its city or its city, on the model of youth areas next to it offering sports, music, culture and leisure activities for the eight to 25 years. Under the direction of Sir Gareth Southgate, each youth area also offers mentoring services to approach the “lost boys” (and the girls).
Traveling for half a century, the opportunity escalator is in motion. On the eve of the elections, the Prime Minister reached Kennedy’s words again: “GDP does not measure the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their game.” He continued: “Lifting of lives led to a computer and a tutor for each child, a nurse in each school, a career path for each young adult and a club for each community. A cracked mirror is now repaired. ”
