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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Retired insurance professional

Political history: Usually Tory, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

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

He: She came across as a very bright, well-spoken, pleasant person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff 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 education, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undermining British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal 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 energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. 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 prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, 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 denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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