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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former insurance professional

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

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

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

Steve: She came across as a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

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

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who already live here, not just white British, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He clarified 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

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, farms. 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 ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. 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 energy revenues skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach 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 partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I hail from the East End. 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 that local market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She had a little look 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 their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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