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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former insurance professional

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

Amuse bouche: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Occupation: 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 ocean liners; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

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

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 delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, 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 oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. 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 need in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

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. 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 very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

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

Takeaway

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

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