John, 66, Uckfield
Occupation Retired publisher
Voting record Is a member of the Conservative party and always votes Tory, though had a period before he made money when he voted Lib Dem
Amuse bouche John is doing an MA in Shakespeare studies at the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute
Rachel, 63, Brighton
Occupation Social work educator
Voting record Has voted Green since she moved into Caroline Lucas’s constituency. Before that, Labour
Amuse bouche Was arrested in 1981 for sounding the chimes on an ice-cream van: it wasn’t allowed after 7pm but her shift didn’t finish until 8pm
For starters
John I was a bit shocked when she told me she was in a lot of the climate change protest groups. I’ve never spoken to anybody like that before. She was pretty extreme in her views. So we both knew where we were.
Rachel He was very friendly. He said: “I’m really happy to disagree with people, I just don’t like confrontation.” That set the ground rules.
John We had a selection of everything on the menu: in fact, there was far too much food. It was a very nice restaurant – I’ll go there again.
Rachel I had a lovely stuffed aubergine and some cauliflower wings.
The big beef
John My position is that you’d have to be an idiot to deny climate change. It is happening, there’s far too much evidence. But you have to correct it in an achievable way, a way people can cope with. You can’t do what Rachel wanted, which is to change the world overnight, immediately ban petrol cars, immediately ban all sales of oil. That’s unrealistic.
Rachel We were talking about the licence that was given for the new Rosebank field in the North Sea. He said: “It’ll bring us in a lot of money and it’ll only be instead of the oil we get from Saudi Arabia.” I said: “We can’t afford to have any new fossil fuels coming out of the ground, because that will just accelerate global heating.” That is the argument of all climate scientists, including the government’s own advisers.
John She must have mentioned that North Sea thing 10 times. She got very upset. Not with me! But she said: “Millions of people will die because we’re doing this.” And I think that’s extreme. It’s not realistic. I did respect her passion; you’d have to be not very nice not to. But you couldn’t have much of a discussion about her beliefs – she just told you what they were. Again and again.
Rachel I did say to him that if you think about what’s happened this summer in terms of the fires, and the floods in Libya, in New York, we can’t say to the people in Libya that we need to go more slowly. Not when up to 20,000 people died. He did listen to what I had to say, and I listened to him, but I don’t think he took my point. And I didn’t take his.
Sharing plate
John One of my passionate beliefs is that food is too cheap in the UK. We agreed on that. We should have a very vibrant sustainable farming industry and we don’t because the supermarkets, particularly the big four, drive down prices.
Rachel The quality of cheap food is very poor, and the way it’s produced is unhealthy for the environment. However, most people can’t afford to eat organic. This is about the divide between rich and poor – people like Rishi Sunak running around not knowing what to do with his millions, while other people are using food banks.
For afters
John We talked about political parties. I could have guessed by that time, but she was a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. I said he was completely bonkers. She said: “That was how he was portrayed, certainly.” And I said: “No smoke without fire.”
Rachel I said I liked a lot of what Corbyn stood for and that, with the influence of the press, he didn’t stand a chance. The conversation didn’t progress after that.
Takeaways
John We entertained each other, but I’ve never known anybody get quite so emotional about political things.
Rachel He steered away from confrontation, and I don’t like confrontation either. We went off on quite a lot of tangents. In retrospect, I would have liked to go into things in a bit more depth.
Additional reporting: Kitty Drake
• John and Rachel ate at Olive Grove in Brighton
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