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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 “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who are native to the area, not just 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

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. 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 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 energy revenues skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount 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 advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street 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 segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It seems 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