Dining across the divide: ‘I said that in my idealistic communist utopia, all housing would be owned by the state’

Richard, 37, London

Occupation Chartered accountant, working in real estate

Voting record Labour, and describes himself as centre left

Amuse bouche As a boy, Richard sang in Southwark Cathedral for Nelson Mandela, and met him afterwards

Thea, 35, London

Occupation Freelance content writer

Voting record Usually Labour, but Lib Dem most recently. Agrees with the basic theory of communism

Amuse bouche Thea once smoked a joint with Clown from the band Slipknot in a caravan in Mexico

For starters

Thea I did think his salmon trousers were pointing to him being a venture capitalist yacht enthusiast. But he’s just a man who likes salmon chinos.

Richard She mentioned she used to have a Karl Marx T-shirt but gave it away because people confused him for Santa Claus. She was wearing shorts and pink boots – more summery than me, because I’d been in the office.

Thea I’m veggie, but I said if he wanted to get a big steak that was fine. His wife’s vegetarian so he’s used to eating veggie food, and we shared a few things.

Richard We had a fig and hazelnut salad, deep fried feta, peppers, tagliatelle with mushrooms, and a tomato and bean salad. And a nice bottle of chablis.

The big beef

Thea In my idealistic communist utopia, all housing would be owned and administered by the state. So it would be affordable, and rent would be a kind of tax that goes back into maintaining the system and building more accessible housing.

Richard She came from a more idealistic point of view. We should be able to own houses. The problem with housing goes back to Margaret Thatcher selling off social housing and not replacing it. So house prices have gone up and up and up. But it would be very difficult to say we’re going to halve the value of your property – you’d leave millions in negative equity.

Thea I realise it’s almost unworkable. I don’t think housing should be a profit-making asset. There should be a limit on how many properties you can own. So if someone buys a whole unit and it sits empty, it should go back into local authority ownership. So not like the Gestapo turning up on your doorstep and saying, “Get out, give me your house,” but controls to stop people hoarding property, and empty investment properties automatically reverting to government ownership.

Richard There’s no reason why owning a house shouldn’t be aspirational. Take an eight-bedroom house that’s worth five million quid: if someone is fortunate enough to be in that position, you shouldn’t prevent it. What you should be doing is making sure the people who can afford those houses are paying their share in tax.

Sharing plate

Richard We agreed that Thatcher was a bad prime minister – not just for social housing and creating social division, but also giving away the oil reserves.

Thea We kind of agreed on how we felt about Jeremy Corbyn. I was very much in line with his socialist leanings. But we felt he was not a good party leader, and was ineffective over antisemitism.

For afters

Related: Dining across the divide: ‘I kept telling him he was far more leftwing than he thought he was’

Thea Inheritance tax should be 100%. Tax it all, to fund accessible public services and housing. Because so much wealth and property is kept within families, the rich get richer and the poor poorer. It’s unfair and if it was pumped back into functioning public services, people wouldn’t need to rely on inheritance to afford a property, because there would be funding to build enough social housing for everyone who needs it.

Richard Australia has an inheritance system where the recipient can be taxed, rather than the estate. In the UK, you could have a lifetime tax-free inheritance amount – say £100,000 – then everything above that would be taxed. So if you receive a house from your grandfather in Monaco, previously that wouldn’t have been taxed, but now because you would be UK resident, it would be.

Takeaways

Richard Thea was easy to chat to and really interesting. There are a lot of scary and depressing things going on, but we concentrated on the things that might make a difference: it was a hopeful conversation.

Thea Even if we had more opposing political views, we still would have found areas we could compromise on. People’s politics are not inherently malicious, even if they seem nasty to someone on the other side.

Additional reporting: Kitty Drake

• Thea and Richard ate at Toklas in London WC2.

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