The Guardian - UK (2022-04-30)

(EriveltonMoraes) #1
The Guardian | 30.04.22 | SATURDAY | 11

CUTTINGS


Dining


across the


divide


Can breaking


bread bridge


political


diff erences?


Liz, 42 – says white British people are


conditioned into thinking they are superior


Terence, 74 – thinks migrants crossing


the Channel should be staying at home


Interview: Zoe Williams

L i z , 4 2 , M a n c h e s t e r
Occupation Mental health nurse
Voting record Mainly Labour at general
elections, occasionally Green during the
New Labour years
Amuse bouche She won fl ights from
Manchester to Kuala Lumpur and
visited Malaysia in the Sars epidemic

Terence, 74, Bury, Greater Manchester
Occupation Retired, previously
a builder and entrepreneur
Voting record Labour until he was 28 –
has voted Conservative since
Amuse bouche Used to own a bar on
the Algarve in Portugal

For starters
Terence I envisaged we were going to
be talking a lot, and I don’t like eating
food quickly. I had roasted beetroot
because I thought : “I can eat that and
won’t still be here at midnight.”
Liz I had the ox cheeks with parsnip
crisps, stilton dumplings and mashed
potatoes, then chocolate truffl e with
honeycomb and toff ee sauce.
Terence She told me she was in the
NHS. We probably had similar views
on that, from a diff erent angle.
Liz He wants to preserve it as well –
that was a big one. If we’d disagreed,
that’s all we’d have talked about.

The big beef
Terence I openly said : “I don’t agree
with these migrants who are coming
across the Channel from France.” To
me, in the main, the people doing this
are fi t gentlemen of a youngish age,
who should be back home helping to
defend wherever they come from, or
helping to make it better.
Liz He was all: “You make your own
luck in this world ” and I said ,“What
about these people in dinghies?
They’re taking a risk. They’re making
their own luck.” But he couldn’t see it.
Terence She said they come here for
a better life. But there are avenues that
you can go down for asylum if you’re
getting persecuted. Where did they get
the money to pay thousand of pounds
to get across here?
Liz I probably started off the
conversation with the caveat that,
as white British people, we are all
racist. We’ve been conditioned into
thinking that we are superior – we’ve
been thinking that way for hundreds
of years. He’s of the mindset that if
people are genuinely fl eeing confl ict,
they should be welcomed in.

Sharing plate
Terence From Liz’s point of view, and
probably from mine, the NHS has been

underfunded for about 10 years. But
it’s been underfunded for the past 20
years, by successive governments, not
just Conservatives. It was Tony Blair
who introduced privatisation as well.
Liz We talked about a two-tier
private system – if the private sector
cherry picks the routine operations,
the NHS is left with the diffi cult stuff.
So we agreed on that.
Terence It’s like a perennial football


  • if the government changes, the
    NHS changes. It needs cross-party
    consensus so that you can get a proper
    plan to go forward.
    Liz We both wanted more money for
    frontline staff. I agreed it should be
    less political. There’d be less need for
    management. Because the systems
    change so often, and it’s all about
    making things as cheap as possible,
    there’s a lot of unnecessary expense.


For afters
Liz I brought up the police, crime,
s e n t e n c i n g a n d c o u r t s b i l l , a n d h o w
peaceful protest is being outlawed.
I don’t think he was aware of the
legislation. I said ,“It’s about peaceful
protest. And if you ban peaceful
protest, what are people going to start
doing to get their point across?”
Terence Protesters stopping normal
people going about their business,
going to work to support their family,
because people are playing silly
buggers , that is out of order.
Liz It wasn’t helpful that the Insulate
Britain movement emerged just as the
bill was going through. The timing of
it, and the persistent targeting of the
same areas, causing people to become
so much more angry: that seems to me
like the kind of tactic that would turn
people against peaceful protest.
Terence To glue yourself on to slip
roads of motorways – forget anything
else, it’s against the law.

Takeaways
Liz He wasn’t that interested in getting
to know me as a person, and fi guring
out what might have informed my
allegiance in politics. He thinks
everybody should be self-employed.
Terence I t was quite amicable. People
have their own views about others
who are suff ering, who are not
earning enough money, etc. I’ve been
self-employed for 45 years – you get
a diff erent perspective.

Liz and Terence ate at TNQ in
Manchester; tnq.co.uk. Want to meet
someone from across the divide? Go to
ADDITIONAL REPORTING: NAOMI LARSSON theguardian.com/diff e r e n t - v i e w s


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Portrait: Chris Thomond
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