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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Profession: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Typically Conservative, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Amuse bouche: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked 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 there to have a nice time, to be open

He: She seemed like a very bright, 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 certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures 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 believe that governments have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. 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 maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I come 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: 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 gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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