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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the SDP

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

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

Steve: She came across as a very bright, articulate, pleasant person

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

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who already live here, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on education, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; 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

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require 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

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 the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced 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. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. 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 theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: 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

Takeaway

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

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