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Meeting the Participants

Steve, 64, Essex

Profession: Former underwriter

Political history: Typically Tory, apart from when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says 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 weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, New Zealand, she supported both Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

She: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

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

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

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – people could come here and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling 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 advancing to greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze 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 doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

Steve: I think we parted on good terms. We had a embrace at the train stop

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