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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and supported the SDP

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

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

Eva: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, 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 occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on education, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood 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 great to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, 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 develop eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur 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 hydro

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – 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 come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street 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 segregated area. 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 agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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