Kyme, 27, York
Occupation Asset engineer, looking after buildings for the railways
Voting record Labour. Describes himself as fairly centrist
Amuse bouche Once hitchhiked from Croatia to the UK – for charity and for the experience
Martin, 61, Cheltenham
Occupation Local councillor, president of the Green Liberal Democrats
Voting record Lib Dem. Martin has been an MP and an MEP
Amuse bouche Martin was once ordered by the chief whip to lock himself in the toilet of the House of Commons to give them time to table some amendments
For starters
Kyme Martin looked full of life, not the grey creature you imagine a politician to be. I did history and politics at university, Martin did history. We talked about John Stuart Mill, who’s an icon for liberals. I had a sort of savoury carrot cake. Then a hake fillet, which was up there with the best fish I’ve ever had. We shared a bottle of white wine.
Martin We both had to travel quite far, and found we are both enthusiasts for trains, the Manchester Metrolink and good town planning. Kyme’s really nice and very interesting. I had a mozzarella and roasted tomato starter, then sea bream, which was beautifully done.
The big beef
Martin We talked about the balance between housing and green space. There’s a shortage of affordable homes, but we also need to value the ecology which provides us with food, cleans our air, absorbs CO2 and safeguards our physical and mental health.
Kyme Sometimes to be more environmentally friendly you have to sacrifice some green land so people can live closer to their work. Talking about the railways, it’s so difficult for projects like HS2 to reach fruition because every step of the way they say, “You can’t build there, newts reproduce in this field.” We need to conserve the green belt, but also to look at that bigger picture: if we did sacrifice this little strip to put through a high-speed rail link, it would cut the need for thousands of people to own cars.
Martin Brazilians and Indonesians would make the same case about taking slices out of rainforests. We’re one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, so we can’t tell developing countries they shouldn’t make incursions into sensitive environments and then devastate our own.
Kyme We have to prioritise building houses on brownfield sites and crack down on land-banking – people who hold on to brownfield plots for years. There will come a point when we have to build on the green belt, which has to be done conscientiously.
Sharing plate
Kyme We agreed more than we disagreed. We agreed it’s important to build houses people want to live in. It’s depressing to go to these characterless copy-and-paste pastiche new estates. They should be building communities.
Martin My inclination is still to put the brakes on more than Kyme would, but after a few pints we might have come up with a good concept of planning policy, despite our different starting points.
For afters
Kyme I don’t think Martin sees the same importance in home ownership as I do.
Martin I spent quite a lot of my life renting, and I’m quite surprised that Kyme’s generation are so fixated on owning a house. I look at Germany, where 50% of the population rents.
Kyme Many problems we talk about in today’s society are about people being lonely, not having a sense of belonging and attachment to a place. Mill wrote about the importance of people having a stake in the land. We’re running the risk of creating a society where you have people with property and people without, and never the two shall meet.
Martin As a 1980s progressive, that sounded a wee bit Thatcherite. He made the very justifiable and obvious point that it was fine, from my perspective, with my paid-off mortgage, to talk about encouraging people to rent and not buy. And that his generation obviously sees it from the other end of the telescope.
Takeaways
Kyme It was really good to meet someone who has that experience of being in a political machine. The next Lib Dem conference is in York, so we’re going to meet up for a pint at a pub I was recommending to him.
Martin It’s healthy to sit down with someone who comes from a different starting point and realise that we’re not quite as far apart as we would have expected. And I think I’ve made a new friend with a lot to teach me.
Additional reporting: Kitty Drake
Kyme and Martin ate at Kala in Manchester
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