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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired insurance professional

Voting record: Typically Conservative, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and supported the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

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

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

For starters

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

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

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white white British, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped 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 ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity 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 moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced 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 gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze 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 denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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