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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, 64, Essex

Profession: Retired underwriter

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

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

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

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

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. However I just don’t think the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; 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; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. 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 use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

For afters

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

He: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. 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 deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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