3 hours ago
8
Chris, 42, London
Occupation Electrical supervisor of the maintenance team at an NHS hospital
Voting record Labour
Amuse bouche He used to play and referee mid-level community rugby until he got “too old and unfit”
Alex, 42, London
Occupation London Assembly member
Voting record Conservative for most of his life, then during the pandemic he moved to Reform (in a move his still-Tory husband characterised as “throwing a strop”) because he didn’t agree with lockdown, masks or banning social gatherings of more than six people
Amuse bouche He has two Brittany dogs, and one won a class at Crufts
For starters
Alex I didn’t know what to expect, though part of my job is talking to people with different views. Chris was really friendly.
Chris We got on well. Alex is a really nice, personable guy, and it’s quite hard to question somebody belligerently when they’re so easy to talk to.
Alex I had calamari to start, which was lovely. For the main course, I had fettuccine with lamb ragu and a glass of montepulciano, and for dessert I had my go-to: tiramisu. It was great.
Chris I had the calamari to start, with a minty tartare dip. Then I had a spicy pepperoni pizza, a couple of bottles of beer, and for dessert a really nice lemon tart.
The big beef
Alex He suggested the Clacton byelection was a vanity project. Obviously I disagree, but it’s a perfectly understandable position. Nigel Farage clearly believes (and I support him) that ultimately his constituents should be the judge – and they gave him a resounding vote of confidence.
Chris If constituents could be the judge, then why would there be another byelection later if he’s found to have breached parliament’s rules? In Clacton, you’d only need about 8,000 people to sign a petition to recall him, which seems likely because almost 10,000 people voted for a man with a bin on his head.
Alex It was a lot easier canvassing for Reform in Clacton than in the local elections earlier this year in London. I got more abuse during that campaign than I had had in 27 years of politics.
Chris I said, imagine how it is now for a canvasser who isn’t a middle-aged, white, Anglo-Saxon male. If you’re a woman, or from an ethnic minority, or if you’ve got a disability, you’re probably going to get a lot more abuse.
Sharing plate
Alex Hurtling towards an artificial target of net zero is counterproductive. We’re doing self-inflicted damage to the economy for what’s largely virtue signalling, in my view, because of the 1% of emissions we’re responsible for. Fundamentally, we need to keep the lights on and food on the table. I support more efficient use of our own natural resources, including oil and gas.
Chris I’m in favour of investing in renewable energy; he’s more in favour of bringing energy costs down by extracting more fossil fuels. I said we can do that, but it’s going to make global warming worse. At our NHS hospital, we’re pretty much at maximum electrical capacity, and if we were to install loads of extra air-conditioning units, as people think we should, that would overload our electrical system.
For afters
Alex Andy Burnham is not willing to make tough decisions on things like welfare spending. My view would be that we need to look very seriously at things like Pip [personal independence payment] and foreign-born residents being able to claim universal credit.
Chris He was all for shrinking the state a bit, but he didn’t really go into much detail on how he would do that. I think we should try to raise revenue in other ways, such as bringing capital gains tax in line with income tax, going after big corporations because they’re not paying proper tax, and reforming other taxes like VAT and council tax, because I believe those are regressive taxes that hit the people in the lowest income brackets the hardest.
Takeaways
Alex I think that just by having an interest in politics you’ve got more in common with someone else, even if they’re taking a contrary view. Even though we disagreed, we had that shared interest.
Chris We swapped numbers. He was nice, personable and easy to get on with. I imagine he’ll stand as an MP in the next general election, so I’ll probably text him around then and see how he’s doing.
Additional reporting: Kitty Drake
Alex and Chris ate at Citro, London N6.
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