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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Retired insurance professional

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

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

He: She seemed like a very bright, articulate, pleasant person

She: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – candidates could come here and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

He: I hail from the eastern part of London. 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 Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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