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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Usually Conservative, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” 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 far from it when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

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

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

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

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just white British, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He told 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 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

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 oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll require in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

He: I come from the eastern part of London. 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 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 “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

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