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Meeting the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Retired insurance professional

Voting record: Typically Conservative, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

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

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

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

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, pleasant person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been service industry, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, 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 allocated those funds to develop 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 supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll need 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

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

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 appear out of place. 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 denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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