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Meeting the Participants

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Conservative, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, New Zealand, she supported both Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be receptive

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who already live here, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just don’t think the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a new light. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a embrace at the station

She: We both said that we’d had a lovely time