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Introducing the Participants

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Voting record: Usually Conservative, apart from when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His focus in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

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

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

For starters

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

Steve: She came across as a very bright, articulate, pleasant person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who already live here, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. 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 oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount 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 environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

For afters

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note 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 religion

Steve: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People gaze 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 Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

She: We both said that we’d had a wonderful evening