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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

Amuse bouche: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

Eva: Steve seemed there to have a nice time, to be receptive

He: She came across as a very intelligent, well-spoken, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who are native to the area, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could come here and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, 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 paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues soared after the conflict began, they used that money to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. 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 implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

Steve: I think we parted on good terms. We had a hug at the train stop

Eva: We both said that we’d had a wonderful evening