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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former insurance professional

Political history: Typically Tory, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

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

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

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could come here and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff 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 international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, 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

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed 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 radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, 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 gave a slight glance 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 believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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