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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

Political history: Usually Tory, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

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

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

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

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, 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 UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on education, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

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 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 skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach 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 use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

He: I hail 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 that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look 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 their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit discriminatory, 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 lovely time