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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired insurance professional

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

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

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

For starters

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

He: She seemed like a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then 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 international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. 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 Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling 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 environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, 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 stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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