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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Voting record: Usually Tory, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. However I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. 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 innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll require in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

He: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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