🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former insurance professional

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

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be receptive

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

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

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

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 raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. 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 Norway?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount 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

For afters

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

He: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People gaze 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 Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat 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 wonderful evening