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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Profession: Former underwriter

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

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

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her home country, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a long time to be on a boat

For starters

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be open

He: She came across as a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

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

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who already live here, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could come here and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues soared after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need 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 water power

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

He: 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: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street 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 Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – 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

Takeaway

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

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