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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired insurance professional

Political history: Usually Conservative, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked 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 appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

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

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

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just don’t think the figures are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on education, on technology

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with 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, farms. She grasped 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 ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, 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 skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll require in the coming years. 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 hydro

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I hail from the eastern part of London. 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 stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – 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 overrepresented in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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