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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, 25, the capital

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her home country, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

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

For starters

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

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

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

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who already live here, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just don’t think 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 warm beer. But I believe that governments have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on innovation

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: 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 agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll need in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

He: I come 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 that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Conclusion

He: I think we parted on good terms. We had a hug at the train stop

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