Dining across the divide: ‘Without being patronising, I think as he grows older he’ll tune in to the damage “free speech” can do’

Ted, 24, London

Occupation Works for a thinktank

Voting record Conservative

Amuse bouche Ted does am dram with Loughborough’s Festival Players – probably his biggest part was in The Railway Children in 2019

Nicky, 58, Essex

Occupation Executive coach

Voting record Mostly Labour; will vote tactically for Lib Dem, but after Nick Clegg really has to think about it

Amuse bouche Nicky’s mum and dad met at a Louis Armstrong concert in Malawi. He was helping with independence and her grandparents ran a hostel on the top of Zomba mountain

For starters

Nicky He was a really lovely, warm, enthusiastic human being. Obviously considerably younger than me.

Ted She was basically what I expected. It was a very pleasant evening.

Nicky Because I knew it was Italian, I was homing in on the tiramisu.

Ted I had a sirloin steak.

The big beef

Ted I am a free speech absolutist – I don’t believe in any restrictions whatsoever. Things such as the Communications Act 2003 and the Online Safety Act 2023 are resulting in huge numbers of arrests for speech offences. You start by criminalising things most of us would agree were abhorrent, but it’s the thin end of the wedge. You end up seeing people arrested for perfectly valid points of view, things that are relatively tame.

Nicky I challenged him on a lot of things, and he did have caveats. For instance, he had quite strong views on abortion, but he didn’t necessarily believe people making that difficult decision should be hounded. When you pushed him on detail, on the moral implications, on the silent mental damage of unchecked free speech, he did say there’s a time and a place for saying what you think. Without sounding patronising, I think as he grows older he will tune into the damage you can do.

Ted She raised the point of people in her family who would be caused serious mental harm if others were allowed to express their opinions freely to them. I think being able to take offence is not a right, or certainly more important is the right to say what you want. I want to know who holds abhorrent views, rather than it be pushed underground. I want to look my enemy in the face.

Nicky If you stand in front of somebody and diminish them, and do that enough, the toll that takes means there will be suicides and anguish that you will never see the numbers on. Do I believe the government should tell us everything we need to do and say? No. We are in a democracy. But we should also treat others as we’d wish to be treated ourselves.

Sharing plate

Nicky On healthcare, he was spouting the example of Norwegian and other countries’ semi-insurance policies, and I said: “This just drives us to the US position.” I’m a base-level healthcare believer: there’s a duty of care and any emergency should be dealt with. And he agreed with that.

Ted I expressed my desire to abolish the NHS and replace it with a social insurance model. This would still have provision for free treatment at the point of need, but people would pay through insurance systems, and they would choose the level of cover they’ve got. Those models deliver far better outcomes for patients.

For afters

Nicky He loves the monarchy. Look, given the chance, I’d probably vote “no” to keeping them. But I do respect the fact they bring in huge amounts of tourism and I don’t really resent state payments, so long as it’s for work. I haven’t got an issue with the security cost, either. But do I think people should be born into privilege and power? No. He did say, at one point, “When is enough? For these ultra-rich people, what will be enough?” That showed a sensitive side, and I really warmed to him.

Ted It’s not the people, it’s the institution that I love. I think it’s fundamental to the system of governance of this country, which led to us being so strong. Not just the monarchy, but the constitution as a whole and a parliament that is sovereign. It’s worked for 1,000 years.

Takeaways

Ted We both said it had been a really interesting and fun evening and we were glad we’d done it.

Nicky He was a lovely human being. I think he’ll evolve – he’s one to watch!

Additional reporting: Kitty Drake

Nicky and Ted ate at Alfi in London, E1

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