Dining across the divide: ‘He wants to ban all cars. I’m uncomfortable with that’

Tony, 63, Leeds

Occupation Director of a social enterprise with a focus on health and wellbeing

Voting record Labour every time, bar 1983 – the longest suicide note in history and all that

Amuse bouche Years ago, Tony was sitting next to a man in Cuba when someone whacked the man with a big stick. He died right in front of Tony

Tom, 37, Leeds

Occupation Research scientist

Voting record A swing voter, Tom has never voted for any incumbent MP

Amuse bouche Is the co-chair of a beer festival with about 45 different casks: dark, light, brown, IPA, international

For starters

Tom He was very open and friendly.

Tony He seemed really nice, the kind of person who wouldn’t bristle at anything or cause me to.

Tom They had a taster board – four things that we could share easily.

Tony It was very meaty. We had a steak sharing dish, sauces, chips and sides.

The big beef

Tom Tony wants to ban cars altogether, and he opened this conversation saying no one in his family agrees with him. He’s got a moral absolutist view: cars are bad for the environment, they’re a danger to people, we really should be spending a lot more time and energy getting rid of them. I’m aware of studies showing how far children explore outside their own home. It used to be: “Go play till sunset.” Now it’s: “Don’t leave the garden.” You can directly link the radius to the rise of the automobile. Kids’ freedom is so curtailed compared with previous generations. And yet I’m deeply uncomfortable with the removal of all the freedoms cars bring.

Tony I can see this conversation is a bit controversial: I’ve had it with others and they’ve been incandescent with rage. The case for banning cars would be the statistics, more than 30,000 killed or seriously injured every year. Noise pollution, air pollution. Imagine if cars didn’t exist and then someone came up with the idea of inventing a two-ton truck that would hurtle along, if it hit a kid it would kill them stone dead, but that’s just the price you pay. From that perspective, you might not think that was such a great idea.

Tom I think we need better city planning. There’s loads of nice stuff that could be done that’s not being done. I don’t think any of his arguments are wrong but it’s such a radical leap, I can’t get my ahead around what society would look like if we did that.

Tony He worried that if only 10% of people had cars, they would just be the rich people, the usual suspects. I said: “Well you wouldn’t necessarily have anyone with a car.” But he wasn’t emotional about it, he wasn’t all “my car is my freedom”.

Sharing plate

Tom I’m really tired of conservatives in the UK and the US politicising immigration. Facts and figures don’t matter any more – what’s promoted are emotions more than realities. We absolutely agreed that’s distasteful. But I think he’d take the view: what else do you expect from Conservatives? I want to expect better of them and I’m really disheartened that we can’t.

Tony I think we both agreed that we obviously need immigration – the last thing the Tories wanted was to admit that, given the promises they made. But then they realised that certain sectors really needed it. The better approach might be Starmer’s – training people in this country to take those jobs, so we wouldn’t be taking the human resources of other nations.

For afters

Tom Positive discrimination is almost an oxymoron. But looking at it, if we hadn’t had all-women shortlists, waiting for parliament to have an equal number of men and women would have taken 1,000 years. Everyone needed a push.

Tony That makes sense to me, because once they’ve been put on the shortlist, they still have to get elected. And the risk of backlash is quite low, because the worst thing that can happen is that they don’t get elected. I just disagree with other examples, people getting put on boards and committees, where they feel tokenised and not supported, just to tick a box.

Takeaways

Tom He challenged me and made me explore where I stood. Online, that is deeply uncomfortable, but face to face, I found it really enjoyable.

Tony We were there until 11 o’clock, chitchatting merrily away. I almost missed my bus.

Additional reporting: Kitty Drake

• Tom and Tony ate at Gaucho in Leeds. Want to meet someone from across the divide? Find out how to take part