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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Typically Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

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

Eva, twenty-five, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

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

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed 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 two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. 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

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I hail from the East End. 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 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 “ghetto”. 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 different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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