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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Retired insurance professional

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

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: 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 most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be on a boat

For starters

Eva: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be open

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

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

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – 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 happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining 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 cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, 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 skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

He: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze 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 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 alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

Steve: I think we parted on good terms. We had a embrace at the station

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