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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

Voting record: Typically Conservative, except when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

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

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just don’t think the figures are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on innovation

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – people could come here and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

He: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

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

Takeaway

Steve: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the train stop

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