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Introducing the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Retired underwriter

Political history: Typically Conservative, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the SDP

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Evie, 25, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both 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

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be receptive

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

She: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, 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 Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; 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 international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, 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 oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity 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 advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

He: I hail 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: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. 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 poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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