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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Voting record: Typically Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of 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

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

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

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much 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 skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could come here and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

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 oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. 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 hydro

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

He: 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: 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 segregated area. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – 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?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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