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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

He: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people 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 disagree that the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, 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. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on education, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could come here and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, 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 used that money to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not 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 modernized. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. 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 Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

He: I think we parted on good terms. We had a embrace at the train stop

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