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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

Voting record: Usually Tory, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and supported the SDP

Interesting fact: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Eva, 25, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

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

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

Eva: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

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

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

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just white British, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

He: I hail 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 Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

He: I think we parted on good terms. We had a hug at the station

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