Grainne, 52, London
Occupation Content editor for a children’s retailer
Voting record Always Labour, but did not vote last time. Considers first past the post a weird system
Amuse bouche Used to be an art copyist: did a couple of imitations of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, the 1920s German painter
Marlon, 65, London
Occupation Part-time financial software analyst
Voting record Generally Labour, but voted Workers Revolutionary party in the mid-70s as “John Silkin was the Labour candidate and he was a bastard”
Amuse bouche Captained a winning team at the British chess championship in the 80s
For starters
Grainne He looked like a trendy chap. I approve of nail varnish on men.
Marlon Same sort of age as me, very pleasant, firm handshake. And then, once we started talking, she was obviously erudite, intelligent.
Grainne He knew the restaurant, and he ordered. He was quite masterful. We had the lobster linguine to share, and a) it was delicious, and b) I really like it when someone orders for me.
Marlon After the pasta, we had half a tiramisu each.
The big beef
Grainne He’s a much more radical thinker than I am. He thinks you shouldn’t inherit any wealth, although he had a fallback option that if you are going to inherit, it should all be taxed. I talked about being helped by my parents, who’d worked very hard, and that informs one’s own view. I can’t imagine not wanting to do the same thing for my children.
Marlon Fundamentally, I think inherited wealth is wrong. Rich people have enough money, they don’t need to pass on enormous amounts of it to their children, thus making the inequalities in this country even more entrenched. Getting rid of inheritance would do a lot to balance the books at the Treasury.
Grainne I totally agree on entrenched privilege. We agreed that we’d abolish the monarchy and ban private schools – at least I got the sense that he’s a republican. I’ve become much more republican since the Queen went. The pageantry! It was North Korean. I thought the county had taken leave of its senses.
Marlon We agreed how awful Boris Johnson is, what a disaster Brexit has been – the sort of things middle-class, left-wing people agree on.
Sharing plate
Grainne We talked about overpopulation. It was difficult – we agreed the only things you could actively do about it would be despotic. He had one nice idea though: there should be child limits put on rich people, because they have bigger carbon footprints. We were being lighthearted about it.
Marlon I was joking about curtailing rich people’s reproductive rights, but it is unarguable that rich people’s kids have more effect on the environment than poor people’s kids. They have more cars, they take more aeroplanes. But any kind of move to stop people having kids is doomed to failure.
Grainne He’s more eat-the-rich and I’m more nibble at them, but I liked that. We need someone with big ideas.
Marlon Grainne said the average number of children per household in Japan is under one already. One of the issues this throws up is an ageing population and a shrinking tax base. But I’m not sure it plays out as a terminal decline. There will be a period when you’ve got problems looking after your ageing population, but the issue will dissipate.
For afters
Grainne He eats meat now, but used to be vegetarian. He was inspired by having seen the horrors of animal husbandry on a TV programme, which is funny because, about 35 years ago, my husband watched a programme and went vegetarian. So we sang the praises of Quorn and tofu, and then we ordered a lobster.
Marlon I try to eat ethically sourced meat, as does Grainne. Although she still buys dirt cheap chickens from Asda, and we buy the odd dirt cheap chicken from Sainsbury’s.
Takeaways
Grainne I think we respected each other’s take on things. I really like people having strong opinions about stuff, unless they’re awful opinions. But I do like a heated debate.
Marlon We had a great evening. We agreed on practically everything.
Additional reporting: Kitty Drake
• Grainne and Marlon ate at Pastaio in London.
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