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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

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

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

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

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

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, 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 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 an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling 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 advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

He: I come 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: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze 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 consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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