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Meeting the Participants

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. 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 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, 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 Ukraine started, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need 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

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

He: I hail 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 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 segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – 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?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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