A century ago, the American women’s suffrage movement argued that the women’s vote could deliver not only life’s bread – shelter and security – but also life’s roses. It was a phrase adopted by the international labour movement, turned into poems and songs. An idea was built, that wealth was not the only preserve of the wealthy that needed redistributing, but that education, music, theatre, books, culture should also be available to working people too. That everyone should be able to expect a life not only of survival, but of satisfaction too.

It’s in this tradition that the Co-operative Party is campaigning for fans to have fair access to live music. The clamour for Oasis reunion tickets brought into sharp focus the ticket touts that plague fans trying to buy tickets not only for popular concerts but also for festivals, comedy and theatre. Ticket touts, who buy up tickets and resell them for well above face value, can operate as individuals, but they are often organised. These groups boast profits of hundreds of thousands of pounds and sometimes get away with genuinely illegal practices because regulation is so weak.

Oasis tickets originally marketed at £148 are still being resold on touting websites for £6000, forty times their original value. Faced with numbers like these, fans – the people that live music is really about – are forced to either stump up or miss out.

All of this happens against a backdrop of consumers getting ripped off again and again. Dubbed ‘greedflation’ by economists, we know that rising inflation in recent years has been driven, at least in part, by excess profits hoarded by companies and paid in handsome dividends to shareholders. From rising car insurance premiums and price gouging energy companies to something as simple as the inexplicable cost of the weekly shop, it is consumers again and again who pay the price for greed.

And so why should we sit back and watch fans, who should be at the heart of live music, get ripped off? Why is it acceptable for touts to get away with exploiting fans’ love and passion, for profit, sometimes asking for thousands of pounds that most people simply don’t have? Why isn’t this something to be angry about and campaign against?

Following the government’s consultation on this issue, we want to see a proper licensing system set up empowered to issue sanctions including tough fines to websites that host ticket touting. But we also want to see a change in the way we talk about fans and their access to culture.

It shouldn’t be the case that when campaigners raise an alarm about huge profits being made at the expense of consumers, some argue that it doesn’t matter. It may not be about the most basic building blocks of life, but it does matter that people can’t access arts and culture. It does matter that simple things like a concert, the cinema, a trip to the pub, a meal out with family, are becoming inaccessible and unaffordable for many. It does matter that increasing numbers of people are expected to wave goodbye to the simple things that make life varied and full.

The Co-operative Party is the historic party of the consumer. Our movement has its roots on the shop floor, when working people came together and built a new system to provide food at fair prices, allowing families to eat, and ever since we have fought for the basics any consumer should expect. But we can’t stop there.

We cannot allow culture to become even more exclusive to those who can afford to pay extortionate sums, and ask everyone else to just expect and accept the bare minimum. A life worth living isn’t just about having a roof over your head and food in your belly. It’s also about a life that is rich and joyful, full of beauty and culture and pleasure. Our country faces huge challenges in getting the basics right, but that shouldn’t be all we ask for.

That’s what our ancestors in the suffrage and labour movements were talking about when they asked not only for bread, but for roses too. James Oppenheim, the American writer who turned that suffrage phrase into poetry, wrote, “hearts starve as well as bodies”. The impact of getting this wrong, of accepting the creeping retreat of art, culture, joy from our lives, are profound. If movements of working people a century ago thought this to be worth fighting for, at a time when even the most basic rights were out of reach, then surely it must matter now too.