Dining across the divide: ‘She’s got a real downer on Nigel Farage – I think he’s a charismatic guy’

7 hours ago 11

Steph, 66, Chester

Occupation Retired primary school headteacher. Now does consultancy

Voting record Always Labour, and is the local women’s officer for her party

Amuse bouche Steph has a bald dog named Archie, and unfortunately he doesn’t like having his head touched. He nearly snapped the Duke of Westminster’s hand off

Steve, 51, Connah’s Quay

Occupation Police officer

Voting record Normally Conservative; Reform UK last time; would consider Restore Britain in the future

Amuse bouche Probably his best day with the police was when a young woman said, “You’re Jason Statham – you look like Jason Statham.” He logged it, and a colleague added to the log: “The lady was very intoxicated.” He and his mate Sean are starting a Jason Statham podcast, one film at a time

For starters

Steph He’s absolutely lovely. We really hit it off. There’s a lot of depth to his anecdotes, he’s a good storyteller and he listens. The fact that he then comes out with, “I think Rupert Lowe’s wonderful; I would stand as a Restore councillor,” I think is because he’s had his head warped by his time in the police force.

Steve My 15-year-old son said, “I bet you’re gonna get a 7ft guy with a beard, in a dress.” I thought, what if I get a student who’s really loud? Then Steph walked in, and we hit it off straight away.

Steph We shared the sea bass.

Steve I had garlic pitta, a steak.

Steph and Stephen chat across a restaurant table

The big beef

Steph Nigel Farage is a nasty, angry, divisive man. He stands there and says, “I’m not racist, I’m not homophobic, my best friend’s black,” then he throws a grenade and all the neanderthals react. They’re anti-immigrant. Steve couldn’t see that – he was just going for the reasonableness of some of the policies and ignoring the ripple effect that the language has. Why is it bringing out all the racists? Why aren’t we having reasonable conversations about their other policies? Because of Nigel Farage. The leadership needs to change, then I might look at their policies.

Steve She’s got a real downer on Nigel Farage. I think he’s a charismatic guy. I had higher hopes for him two years ago than I’ve got now. Rupert Lowe gives his monthly salary to charity, so I think he’s in it for the right reasons. He says what he thinks – he doesn’t say it to appeal to the widest possible audience. When they had that big falling out, I thought, you’ve got such a small party, the time to fall out is when you’ve got three or four hundred MPs.

Steph As for Restore policies, some of them are bonkers; some of them are so weak, you think, fine, do that.

Steve Steph’s got high hopes for Andy Burnham. I just think, the man’s lost a leadership election before to Ed Miliband. You lost to that charisma vacuum and now you’re the saviour of the country?

Sharing plate

Steph I think immigration is fine as it stands. I don’t think we should go to 10 years before you can get indefinite leave to remain. At the moment it’s five years, and I know what a hard slog that is: I’ve seen it up close. We’re encouraging our children to go off and see the world, so the likelihood is that they’ll fall in love with someone from a different country. I think illegal asylum seekers are such a small percentage, it’s been blown out of proportion.

Steve Even as somebody who considers themselves rightwing, I think if somebody’s come here and made a positive contribution, let them stay. Obviously, I have no problem with legal immigration – the only thing I did say is that a lot of the time, politicians say we need more immigrants to fill these jobs. But there are one and a half million Brits unemployed. We should have a block on all new asylum claims until we’ve cleared the backlog.

For afters

Steph He said he thought we were in agreement over Kemi Badenoch’s impressive leadership. I absolutely don’t want to put my name to that.

Steve After a shaky start, Kemi Badenoch is coming into her own a little bit now. I can see myself voting Conservative again.

Takeaways

Steph Honestly, he was really nice. We didn’t stop – we chatted the whole time.

Steve I think we’ll probably keep in touch, because she was messaging me this morning, going, “What do you think of a wealth tax? What do you think of the royal family?”