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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Retired insurance professional

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting 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 DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

He: She seemed like a very bright, articulate, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who are native to the area, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

She: 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 different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers 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, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions 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 gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. 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 Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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