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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Political history: Typically Conservative, except when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “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 opened the missile silos”

Eva, 25, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

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

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas 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 maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could come here and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, 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 Norway?” Their energy revenues 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 not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

She: We touched on 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 accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local 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 segregated area. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – 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 believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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