Dining across the divide: ‘He liked a graph. I’m a little more: show me the evidence’

Martyn, 44, an IT nerd and solutions architect from Sheffield who had previously voted Labour, met Alan, 62, a semi-retired construction worker from Cleethorpes who had long voted Conservative, for dinner at Casa Nostra. Martyn said he will now look at who stands a better chance between the Lib Dems and the Greens; Alan, a former Conservative member, said he now thinks Reform is most likely to grow the economy.

For starters Alan had the haddock house special; Martyn had calamari followed by pan-fried salmon with pasta. They disagreed sharply over climate. Alan said there are scientists on both sides, questioned whether rising CO2 is necessarily a problem and asked how buying an electric car with a large carbon footprint helps; he also pointed out that in the past ten years there have been fewer hurricanes than in the previous ten.

Martyn described himself as quite an environmentalist who believes climate change is human-made and pulled up a simple graphic on his phone to make the case. Immigration proved another fault line.

United Kingdom, Sheffield, Cleethorpes

labour, conservative, lib dems, greens, reform, climate change, immigration, electric car, sheffield, cleethorpes