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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Conservative, apart from when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and supported the Social Democratic Party

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

Evie, 25, the capital

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

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

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be on a boat

For starters

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be open

He: She came across as a very intelligent, well-spoken, nice person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just don’t think the figures are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on education, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was sixteen and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: It would be great to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. 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 skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount 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 environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, 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 Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media 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 wonderful evening