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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Profession: Former underwriter

Voting record: Usually Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

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

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

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who already live here, not just white British, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. 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, 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 oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need 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 greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street 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 “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

Steve: 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