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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Former underwriter

Voting record: Typically Tory, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

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

For starters

Eva: Steve seemed 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 delicious

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, not just white British, 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 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 increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, 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 understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

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 use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced 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: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People stare 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 Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

Steve: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the station

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