Emma, 34, London
Occupation Thinktank comms director
Voting record Tory or Lib Dem until 2024, when Emma spoiled her ballot “because I was annoyed at everybody”
Amuse bouche Aged nine, Emma got her head stuck in the railings of Buckingham Palace. “My dad said: ‘You have to stay here while I get butter. The queen’s going to be really mad.’” In the end, no butter was required
Alys, 36, London
Occupation Co-head of education at a cultural charity
Voting record Labour in the past but recently Green
Amuse bouche Alys once got tricked into running 50km at her running club: “We were at 25k and I thought that was it, but it was the middle of nowhere and I had to run back. The language barrier may have contributed: I was living in Japan”
For starters
Alys I was surprised how fancy the restaurant was. We both had a devilled egg to start. I asked for the caviar to be taken off. For main, I had a butter bean and artichoke thing.
Emma My sucking-pig was bigger than I expected, with a leg attached. I was like: now I feel quite bad because Alys is vegetarian, and I’ve got this!
Alys I’m fine with that – my partner and my daughter eat meat. Emma said she’s really into football. I’m a fair-weather fan, though I did once set up a casual women’s football get-together.
The big beef
Alys We were talking about whether we should spend more on defence, and I’m not against that if it’s what the country needs: we live in a volatile world. To fund it we could raise taxes or cut welfare. Emma would cut welfare; I would raise taxes.
Emma There are other areas we could cut but I think welfare is the biggest. Tax rises wouldn’t raise as much revenue as people think and would damage economic growth.
Alys I don’t think it’s useful, or sustainable, or practical, to encourage growth for ever. What is the point of profit, profit, profit if it destroys the world, or some people can’t afford to live?
Emma There are lots of people who want to and can work but welfare pays them more. So it’s not scrounging: they’re making rational choices based on their economic circumstances, but we need to reform welfare and taxes to ensure you earn more if you have a job.
Sharing plate
Emma We’re both concerned about emissions and the trajectory the planet is on. But while Alys is OK for the government to take what I would consider quite illiberal steps – stop people driving, reduce meat-eating, etc – I’m more about having faith in the private sector to innovate and come up with new technology that will help.
Alys Emma doesn’t want to compel anyone to do anything! On free speech, we agreed that we draw the line at harm or incitement to violence, but I think her bar for harm is higher than mine. We did agree that neither of us want to see book bans.
For afters
Alys Elon Musk is basically a terrible human being, but because he’s so rich he can do what he wants.
Emma A lot of the problem with Musk is how people perceive his personality. They see him battling on X; they don’t see the business side of him. SpaceX is launching more rockets with a higher success rate than governments have done in decades.
Alys Emma’s fine with billionaires. I call them hoarders. There should be a ceiling above which everything goes to the government. I haven’t done the maths, but if someone is a trillionaire, they could solve world poverty.
Emma If you have created value for the world that people have decided is worth something, and the value you extract from that is a lot, I think that’s fine. Jeff Bezos has done more for most people in terms of how convenient Amazon has made their lives; I don’t think at a pound under a billion we should have said: right, you need to stop there, Jeff.
Takeaways
Emma Even though I don’t think either of us shifted the dial on what the other thinks, it wasn’t just: “You want that, I want this, let’s have a row about it.”
Alys I think within her worldview, everything Emma said made logical sense. I just couldn’t understand where she was coming from and why. But it did show that two people from opposite sides of the political spectrum can get together and disagree without being angry or disrespectful towards each other.
Additional reporting: Kitty Drake
