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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Former insurance professional

Voting record: Usually Conservative, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the SDP

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 evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Evie, 25, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

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

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

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who are native to the area, including non-white white British, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on technology

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

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, 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

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need in the future. I kind of agree 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 briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

He: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. 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 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 implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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