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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Retired underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

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

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

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers 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 fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on technology

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

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. 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 build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll need in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

For afters

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced 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 gentrified. 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 very Muslim. 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 implies 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 overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

Steve: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the train stop

She: We both said that we’d had a lovely time