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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired insurance professional

Voting record: Typically Conservative, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

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

For starters

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

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

She: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. 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 Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, 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 continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll need in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments 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 predominantly Islamic. She had a little look 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 deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Conclusion

He: I think we parted on good terms. We had a embrace at the station

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