Edward, 38, Bristol<\/p>\n
Occupation English teacher at a\u00a0secondary school<\/p>\n
Voting record Edward flips between Labour and Green<\/p>\n
Amuse bouche He runs spoken word poetry nights in Bristol<\/p>\n
Martin, 55, Brentford<\/p>\n
Occupation Personal trainer<\/p>\n
Voting record Mostly Conservative, but\u00a0voted for Tony Blair<\/p>\n
Amuse bouche He used to be a stressed-out, unfit lobbyist, and decided to make drastic changes. He started running 10Ks, then ultra-marathons, and when he was 50 he ran round a 400m track for 24 hours, \u201cbecause I\u2019m an idiot\u201d<\/p>\n
For starters<\/p>\n
Martin I was slightly apprehensive, wondering if it would descend into an argument. But he\u2019s a really nice guy.<\/p>\n
Edward We got on really well. It was a\u00a0delightful evening.<\/p>\n
Martin I had the squid to start, then crab pasta with pistachio and chilli \u2013 it\u00a0was lovely. Also, a Sicilian lemonade and my favourite dessert, affogato.<\/p>\n
Edward I had a very tasty tuna tartare to start, then for main a beef ragu and a glass of red wine, and finished with\u00a0an affogato.<\/p>\n
The big beef<\/p>\n
Martin My view on net zero is that we\u00a0already know it\u2019s basically impossible, and if you give people an\u00a0impossible target, they give up. Carbon capture is fundamental to the\u00a0UK\u2019s ability to hit net zero, and nobody has yet proved that it\u2019s scalable beyond test sites.<\/p>\n
Edward If you don\u2019t have a target at all,\u00a0then nobody works towards anything. But I do think there needs to\u00a0be more oversight, ensuring we\u2019re putting the money into things that are\u00a0most likely to have the biggest effects, and not just box-checking.<\/p>\n
Martin The temperature limit was supposed to be 1.5C, but it could be as\u00a0bad as three. If we\u2019re going to miss\u00a0it\u00a0by that much, it\u2019s pointless.<\/p>\n
Edward He was saying we\u2019ll probably hit 3C anyway, so what\u2019s the point in\u00a0spending the money? I think that\u2019s slightly nihilistic.<\/p>\n
Sharing plate<\/p>\n
Martin The civil service employs more than 550,000 people. I think that\u2019s too many. The former head of No 10 comms under Boris Johnson found there were 4,000 more communications staff than they realised. I think we could fix a lot of our issues with tech, rather than throwing more bodies at them.<\/p>\n
Edward Given the scale of the issues they\u2019ve got to address and the size of\u00a0the population, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a crazily large number of employees. What we need is better management of it. We don\u2019t need ministers with no\u00a0experience in these areas coming in\u00a0and making massive changes because they want it to look good on\u00a0their CV.<\/p>\n
For afters<\/p>\n
Martin I think we need to increase defence spending, not on soldiers but cyberwarfare and drone technology. I\u00a0thought Edward had a really interesting take: that some of the costs\u00a0of defence are probably going to\u00a0be triggered by the climate crisis. Because if we continue where we\u2019re going, there will be conflicts over resources and mass migration from\u00a0certain countries as they become\u00a0unliveable.<\/p>\n
Edward We agreed future attacks are\u00a0unlikely to be bombs or people invading the UK, but attacks on banking systems or possibly drone attacks. For me, defence means if something gets cut off from the outside, you\u2019re able to exist on your own and support yourself. If\u00a0you are\u00a0vulnerable as a nation to oil prices,\u00a0then you are vulnerable to conflicts. I think one of the strongest lines of defence against foreign bad\u00a0actors is being energy independent \u2013 which we could be with\u00a0proper investment. We\u2019ve got sea\u00a0around us,\u00a0we\u2019ve got sun, we\u2019ve got wind, we\u2019ve got nuclear.<\/p>\n
Takeaways<\/p>\n
Martin I assumed that Edward would have the view that nuclear power was abhorrent. But he didn\u2019t. So my takeaway is realising that not everybody who\u2019s involved or invested in the environmental movement thinks the same way. I don\u2019t know if he changed my mind, but he definitely made me think.<\/p>\n
Edward It was really lovely to meet somebody I probably wouldn\u2019t normally come across. I thought he was going to be much more extreme than he was. I think we\u2019re not so different in what we want, we just have different ways of getting there.<\/p>\n
Additional reporting: Kitty Drake<\/p>\n
Edward and Martin ate at Citro<\/a>, London, N6.<\/p>\n