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Introducing the Participants

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

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

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 rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, 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

For starters

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

Steve: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on education, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining 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 passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, 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 oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build green infrastructure

Eva: 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 partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

For afters

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

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 modernized. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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