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Meeting the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Former insurance professional

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Evie, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

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

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who already live here, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. However I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, 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 can’t get people to do 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 childcare, on education, on technology

She: 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 EU labor migrants – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped 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 different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. 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 used that money to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed 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 Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I come from the East End. 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 appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. 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 agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

Steve: I think we separated amicably. We had a embrace at the train stop

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