🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired insurance professional

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

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

Steve: She seemed like a very bright, articulate, nice person

She: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, 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 already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas 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 warm beer. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – 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 reformed in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher 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 value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll require 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, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about 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 modernized. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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