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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired insurance professional

Voting record: Usually Conservative, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the SDP

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

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

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve seemed focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

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

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I maintain that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are kept low, so levies 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 the EU referendum, because I was 16 and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

For afters

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I come from the East End. 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 Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes 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 disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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