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Meeting the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Former insurance professional

Voting record: Typically Tory, apart from when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

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

Initial impressions

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

He: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who already live here, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant 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 kept low, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on technology

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

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. 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 energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need 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 environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, 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 didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze 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 deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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