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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: 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 hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

Eva: Steve seemed there to have a nice time, to be open

He: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. However I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. 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

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, 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

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

For afters

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions 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. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. 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 deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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