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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired insurance professional

Voting record: Typically Conservative, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

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

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a long time to be on a boat

For starters

She: Steve seemed there to have a nice time, to be open

Steve: She seemed like a very intelligent, well-spoken, nice person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on technology

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 new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll need in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, 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 very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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