Dining across the divide: He looked like a typical Green voter long hair, laid-back, that sort of thing'

"There is discrimination against older people. The big beef Carl Of course the boats should stop. People are dying in the Channel, that's not a good thing. They should have safe, legal routes and be assessed to see if they have a genuine claim. The current debate has been massively overheated by a vocal, well-funded minority position, and it's taken all the compassion out of it."

"If we did something wrong in a country places like Iraq where we went in stupidly and disrupted people's lives or someone worked as a translator and they now can't work in their country, we should take them. But people are falsely claiming they are going to be killed. I read about someone who successfully claimed asylum and then went back to his country for eight weeks. His asylum should be revoked and he should be"

One diner is unemployed, describes himself as a centrist, has voted both Labour and Conservative, intends to vote Reform next time, and once planned to visit Machu Picchu for his 50th birthday, which became a seven-month overland trip through South America. Carl, 37 from Milton Keynes, is a primary school teacher who always votes Labour but positions himself between Labour, Green and leftwing progressive. Carl used to do body piercing. They shared an Italian meal. Carl reported ongoing job-search difficulties and age discrimination. Carl advocated safe legal routes for Channel crossings; Philip emphasized taking refugees from countries where Britain caused harm but warned about fraudulent asylum claims and revocation.

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