Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey is framing her campaign around three messages: Labour’s path to power, a democratic revolution, and aspirational socialism. The last of the three can sound jarring to those on the Left, who are used to hearing the word “aspiration” invoked to beat back their arguments for higher taxes on the rich, public ownership, and corporate regulation.

Yet it is hard to argue that the term does resonate with much of the electorate. Most people want a better life for themselves and their families. In an individualistic society like ours, the prevailing wisdom is that achieving this vision requires hard work, grit, and merit — but there also exists a consensus that collectively provided public goods like health care, education, and investment are critical for individual self-advancement as well as a healthy society. 

Many of the policies in Labour’s 2019 manifesto were framed around exactly this message. The manifesto was designed to help people to take back control of their lives in the context of a decade of wage stagnation, crumbling public services, and an elite-dominated politics that has left many people feeling excluded from the democratic process. Yet most voters were unconvinced.