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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

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

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be on a boat

For starters

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

He: She came across as a very bright, articulate, pleasant person

She: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who already live here, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. However I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

He: 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 authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

Steve: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build 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 maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount 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 advancing to environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

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 mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

He: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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