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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

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

Interesting fact: 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 North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

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

For starters

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

Steve: She seemed like a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

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

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies 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 sixteen and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – 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 do away with the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; later 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

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

Steve: 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 that local market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the train stop

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