John, 41, St Austell
Occupation Automotive engineer
Voting record Mebyon Kernow [a Cornish nationalist party] when that’s an option, though it’s not often an option. Voted Green last time, sometimes Lib Dem
Amuse bouche John is a hardcore raver, and once went to a 24-hour rave in Birmingham
Jeremy, 54, Wadebridge
Occupation Works for a charity
Voting record Normally votes Lib Dem. Voted Labour once, in 1997
Amuse bouche For a short time, he was deputy leader of Cornwall council, in a Lib Dem/independent coalition. They found themselves in the throes of austerity, making horrible decisions
For starters
Jeremy I found John quiet. He was very pleasant, very warm.
John Jeremy seemed smiley and approachable, and less nervous about meeting a random stranger than I did.
Jeremy I had a chicken and pistachio terrine with piccalilli, and then Mexican braised beef with basmati rice. I was tempted by the fish and chips, and cast envious looks at John’s.
John I had pitta and hummus as a starter.
The big beef
Jeremy All the issues he identified about Cornwall are the same as the ones I’d identify – cost of housing, low wages, lack of opportunity. If you’re a go-getter of a certain age, you have to get out. Now it’s a place people retire to, which skews the house prices even more. You can stay and work in the service industry and enjoy going to the beach, but you’ll never have much income to create a life for a family. We agreed that power should be exercised at a more local level, but, for me, that’s a purely functional thing – you devolve power to the highest level necessary and the lowest level possible. For him, the organising principle was Cornish national identity.
John Because of the decline of mining over the last 200 years, Cornwall is a lot more sparsely populated than all the other counties. And that leads to different requirements, especially when it comes to things like public transport. If I had taken any kind of public transport to this dinner, I would have had to allow three and a half hours. We need the ability to control policies in a way that’s more in tune with the needs of Cornwall, because our challenges are so different.
Jeremy He wasn’t saying, “We don’t want certain people here.” It was more the nationalism you would see in Scotland and Wales, not a Tommy Robinson version. But I still don’t see national identity as a helpful principle.
John We were aligned on devolution; he just didn’t agree that nationhood would be the best way of getting it.
Sharing plate
Jeremy Men of a certain age, it’s very easy to trip over terminology. My daughter’s constantly pulling me up on it, and I’m always willing to be told. I feel that the word “woke” can be used as a lazy term of abuse for somebody else’s argument. Whereas what I understood it to mean is that you were respectful of other people’s views and feelings.
John I think we both felt that some things have gone too far, woke-wise, even though most of our views in that area were what you’d describe as left wing. He was talking about the amount of time he spent in a meeting once discussing whether it should be chairman or chairperson. From my point of view, the more extreme things go in that direction, the easier it is for the right to shoot it down.
For afters
Jeremy We disagreed on tariffs, and I never saw that coming. I went into a little homily about how Trump was creating such a problem for future presidents, but he said, “I’m not sure I agree with that.”
John This is the one thing I agree with Donald Trump on. If you impose tariffs, in the short term it increases costs. But in the long term, it protects jobs. I’m not talking about extreme tariffs, or announcing them overnight on Truth Social. But the whole concept makes you more insulated from global economic incident.
Takeaways
John There were a couple of areas where we both said we didn’t have enough information to have a strong opinion. And we both wished more people would just admit it when they didn’t know enough.
Jeremy We exchanged phone numbers in case we wanted to have a pint when we’re not doing dry January.
Additional reporting: Kitty Drake
• Jeremy and John ate at Hicks Bar in St Austell
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