Labour needs to talk about aspiration without the jargon
‘Aspiration?’ demanded John Prescott on the Today programme, with scarcely concealed contempt, ‘What the ‘eck is that?’ If he had only meant that he was seeking clarification on the meaning of the term, I would be with Prescott on this. Politics in Britain has become conducted in a language which is spoken nowhere else. It is all ‘radical empowerment’ and ‘progressive modernisation going forward.’ The left, which thinks too long but too poorly, is especially prone to nonsensical jargon. The argument about the 2015 defeat has been conducted through these shorthand terms, of which ‘aspiration’ is one. It is worth asking what the heck we mean when we use the term ‘aspiration’.
However, it was obvious from Prescott’s tone that he meant rather more than a request for intellectual clarity. He was not wondering what aspiration meant, he was dismissing it as a cause of Labour’s defeat. He offered instead the depressing, because so evidently wrong, conclusion that Labour needed to knock on more doors the better to get its message across. The early exchanges in the post-election aftermath, from Chuka Umunna, Tristram Hunt and Liz Kendall, were encouraging but, since then, some of the party’s elders have closed the argument down by failing to understand it properly. That lack of comprehension was audible in everything Prescott said and a lot of it was encapsulated in the spitting sneer with which he uttered the word ‘aspiration’.
Of all the people in the Labour party, you would have thought that he would understand aspiration. It really means nothing more than the desire to get on and do well and the sense that a political party will help you or hinder you in that endeavour. Prescott has been socially mobile in his life. He aspired, whether or not that is the term he would use. Behind the word ‘aspiration’ lies the sense that it would be good to be more prosperous, happier, more content tomorrow than we are today. Early in his leadership, Ed Miliband talked about ‘the British promise’. It was a pithy and clever way of talking about aspiration. It encompassed the desire for children to do better than parents. It got Labour talking about the housing market and about the need for good jobs. It was explicitly pitched at people who aspire to a better life, which is to say almost everyone. It was inexplicably dropped.
Instead, Labour retreated to one of its comfort zones. Labour people enjoy abstraction and pompous-sounding grand categories. The British left likes talking about ‘capitalism’ and ‘the good society’, as if anyone in the world ever really thinks like this, let alone ideas such as ‘predistribution’. Miliband always sounded as if he had a plan for the whole society, which he never sounded as if he liked very much, but nothing much to say to the people who lived in that society. Labour’s plans for capitalism sounded systematic and radical. Even though they were supposedly signified by policies such as an energy prize freeze, they never really sounded very domestic.
Labour’s habit of commanding markets to behave – the energy price freeze and the rent cap, for example – illustrate another tendency which is inimical to a sense of aspiration. That is Labour’s habit of doing things to people or for people, rather than licensing people to act on their own devices. ‘Capitalism is grinding you down’, said Labour, ‘and we are going to fix it for you’. Yet it is a rare person who ever thinks in these terms. Most people want to carve out a slightly larger place within late capitalism rather than attend a seminar on how it is doomed or accept gratefully a small retail offer of a few pence off the electricity bill.
Therefore, a more colloquial way of describing what politicians mean when they say aspiration is that it is the answer to the question ‘What is in it for me?’ That is not a narrow concern, either. It is not just economic. People can have all kinds of hopes and desires, though most of them cost money and therefore rest on economic foundations. That makes aspiration, at root, an economic question too. If it is perfectly natural for people to want to partake of a share of national prosperity, then they need to feel some confidence that the government you propose to form will engender that prosperity. Not enough of the electorate were reassured that Labour would do that. Not enough people thought their reasonable aspirations would have been safely met by the Labour party.
So, rather than meaning nothing, as Prescott suggests, aspiration is a codeword for rather a lot. There is no need, necessarily, to keep using quite that word or to make a fetish of it. But people who dislike it tend to associate it with the desire to bring middle-class voters back into the Labour fold. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. Indeed, it is imperative. But the appeal to aspiration is about more than that. Once it is unpacked, aspiration means convincing people that Labour has the wherewithal to make them better off and convincing people at the same time that Labour has trust in people to support them in living lives of their own choosing. It means so much, in other words, that there can be no aspiration to govern without it.
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Philip Collins is chief leader writer at the Times
Interesting post. Aspiration does need unpacking…but does it just mean individual desires. Is there such a thing as collective aspiration? .
One problem with the concept of course is the likely association of aspiration with reinforced individual privileges even at the expense of societal contributions especially through low individual taxes and social responsibilities. This may not always be the intention behind its meaning of course, but it does like an emphasis of the pursuit of self without recognition of the societal contribution to how I get here, and therefore how others may follow behind me. Do we have aspirations for others or only for ourselves I wonder?
I have aspiration for myself, family, village, party, country and humanity as a whole. There’s not much I can achieve, but I do what I can through the support I can give.
We have to separate aspiration from the notions the Tories try to espouse. They might talk about aspiration and I assume they mean more, more, more. But that’s partly because of my own biased viewpoint of who they are. We must claim the word ‘aspiration’ too and want it for others as well as ourselves.
Aspiration is a Tory code word for individual ambition, encapsulating “there’s no such thing as society,” “let the devil take the hindmost,” achievement couched purely in monetary terms, “climbing the ladder,” “pulling up the drawbridge,” and other such socially worthwhile concepts. No wonder anyone with a social conscience finds it difficult to accommodate politically. My aspiration would be to live in a society (yes, it does exist) where the poor, the sick and the unlucky were not vilified and treated as some sort of freak show, where effort and contribution were properly rewarded, where wealth and power were more evenly distributed, where over-mighty subjects were constrained not knelt before, where the rich and privileged were not idolised as if they were solely responsible for their success. If this is seen as left wing, then so be it. Sounds more like decency to me.
decency: “behaviour that conforms to accepted standards of morality or respectability.”
Yes decency, when it means how we behave towards others.
Most people are underestimated and underestimate themselves. They don’t know how good they can be: My mother learnt to swim when she was 50; my aunt passed O’ level English at 50; a student of mine was tagged when in school, but 5 years later he couldn’t believe it himself when he told me about his painting and decorating business; my sisters could hardly read in school but their children work in the city, etc.
We have to help people to realize their potential by believing that they can achieve things. Aspiration must be an essential part of what we offer. Tristram Hunt wrote in Tuesday’s Guardian that “Eighty percent of GCSE attainment is present by the age of 7”. However, many kids start school not knowing colours, numbers 1 to 5 or how to listen to others. We have to give them a chance, by telling their parents how much they could achieve if they supported them.
I really don’t have a problem with helping everyone to achieve their potential, and I do recognise that many completely undervalue themselves, after all, I spent half a lifetime in further education trying to do just that together with getting equal recognition for technical and vocational qualifications and skills alongside so-called academic qualifications. My problem is that “aspiration” is such a vague concept that it can cover a multitude of political objectives, from the entirely selfish to the extraordinarily benevolent. As such it has little meaning unqualified. So I think that every time a politician uses “aspiration” as a buzz word (alongside other favourites such as reform and modernisation) we should ask them precisely what they mean.
Aspiration is a disgusting Tory concept.
Individualism will not be tolerated – the kulaks are there to serve the state, not the other way around.
Tony Blair excepted obviously.
Aspiration is a concept that transcends party politics.
It is a hope or ambition of achieving something:
Get good at maths.
Get a degree.
Become a union rep.
Earn a living wage.
Help my kids.
Change society for the better.
We are going to hear too much of that word, but we need to because, especially for those at the bottom, we want people to aspire to greater things for themselves and their families. Labour will help them do that.
I was pleased to hear Liz Kendall focus on that in her leadership bid.
Never wanted to be a speech writer for blair.or even tell baby boomers to get off the gravy train.assuming this assumes all baby boomers lived the life of riley.unlike of course the wonderful human beings the bankers.who literally were laughing all the way to the bank.It would appear the
Governor Of The Bank of England now says these guys are in the last chance saloon.well said.
“Once it is unpacked, aspiration means convincing people that Labour has the wherewithal to make them better off and convincing people at the same time that Labour has trust in people to support them in living lives of their own choosing”
That’s fantastic Philip, but I still haven’t a bloody clue what ‘aspiration’ means in practice. Your article – and this quote in particular – has just confirmed that it’s a word that means absolutely anything that the user wants it to mean, which makes it useless as a category for policy analysis. And thereby proving that Prescott was absolutely right.