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Meeting the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

She: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

He: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

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

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who already live here, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, 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. Pay 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 technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed 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 an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the future. 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, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

He: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, 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 Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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