Jackie, 57, Newcastle
Occupation Managing director of a law firm
Voting record Mostly Conservative, but voted for Tony Blair the first two times
Amuse bouche Has just written a novel about growing up as a goth in the 80s. Most of her friends who were goths were also Conservatives
Lucy, 34, Newcastle
Occupation Children’s rights solicitor
Voting record Labour every general election, with a couple of Green votes in local elections
Amuse bouche While working in Tanzania, learned conversational Swahili and was disappointed to discover that “simba” just means “lion” while “pumbaa” means “dull-witted”
For starters
Jackie We were polar opposites on many things, but we saw common ground.
Lucy I thought she might be scary, but she looked friendly and approachable.
Jackie It was tapas. We had bread and olives, with aioli. I had tuna steak, patatas bravas and padron peppers.
Lucy I had deep-fried aubergine with maple syrup, which was great. And a kind of fancy mushrooms on toast.
The big beef
Jackie I can’t stand the term feminism: it’s a collective movement, and that’s not me. I just want equal rights – I’m not going to shout about it, I’m going to do it with my own quiet actions.
Lucy She associates feminism with women burning their bras. Having seen what bras were like in the 1960s, I think maybe they deserved to be burned. It was the term that Jackie seemed to have a particular problem with – all the time she was talking, I was thinking, “But you are a feminist.”
Jackie I set up a business on my own. It was always going to be female-friendly, there would be no sexism. But feminism seemed aggressive to me and over the top. Lucy’s point was: together everyone can achieve more. If you’re part of a movement, then together you can create bigger change. I did take the point, but I really would not want to be part of that cause.
Lucy We ended up talking about trades unions as well, and I said, “These things are all linked. The reason it’s important is that you’re so much more powerful as a collective.”
Sharing plate
Jackie We agreed that Newcastle is still considered a backwater by London. We have phenomenal skill sets, fantastic countryside and coast, low house prices by comparison. We concluded there was far too much of civil servants having to go to London to see ministers, whereas what used to happen is ministers would come here. If civil servants stayed here and ministers came to visit them, investment would follow.
Lucy Through my work, I’ve done a lot of training for local authorities and it’s a running theme – if the relevant government department was based up here, things would be different. There’s a big HMRC branch but it’s basically a call centre. London gets so much more public investment and the transport is incredible. You come to the north and it’s terrible. Imagine if the Department for Transport was in Wigan, what would that do for the transport there?
Jackie For me, inward investment for business is being levelled up – with that comes a lot more jobs, highly skilled work, then graduates stay up here, our kids don’t have to move away. They’re opening a big film studio in the shipyards.
Lucy I was surprised to find she was so positive about levelling up. I don’t know anyone who thinks it’s working well. The amount that’s available from that budget is less than a third of what’s been cut by austerity.
For afters
Jackie My view is that it doesn’t matter what you’re doing to try to reduce carbon emissions: if people’s gas and electric bills have to go up to pay for that, that’s the difference between their children being fed and going hungry. A starving child doesn’t care whether we’ve got wind energy – they just want food in their stomachs.
Lucy We did agree on net zero that it wasn’t fair for the consumer to be bearing the cost, when the oil companies are making those profits.
Takeaways
Jackie I really liked her. From the moment we sat down, we got on immediately. We didn’t stop talking for three hours. She would say she came from a middle-class socialist background. I come from a background of working-class Conservatives.
Lucy We got on, we had a really nice chat, but I don’t understand. I just left thinking, why on earth are you a Conservative?
Additional reporting: Kitty Drake
• Jackie and Lucy ate at Boquerones Tapas and Cocktails in Newcastle
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