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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Former underwriter

Political history: 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 planning rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of 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 long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

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

She: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, 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 occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undermining British workers. 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 workers from other countries

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She had a little look 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 denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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