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Introducing the Participants

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

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

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

He: She seemed like a very bright, articulate, nice person

Eva: 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 British people who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: 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 can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, 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 earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop 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 limited quantity we’ll require in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: 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 the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance 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 deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Conclusion

Steve: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the train stop

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