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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former underwriter

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

Amuse bouche: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

She: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. 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

Steve: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

He: 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. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street 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 “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use 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 somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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