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Meeting the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Typically Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both Labour and Green

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

For starters

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

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

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

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. However I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on education, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

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 continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require 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, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

He: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People gaze 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 poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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