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Introducing the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Former underwriter

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

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

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

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

For starters

Eva: Steve seemed there to have a nice time, to be open

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

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, 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 can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and receive solely the salary of the their nation of origin

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff 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 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 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 Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling 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, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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