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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Retired underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning 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, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage 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

He: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, pleasant person

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

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could come here and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. 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 oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need 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

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – 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 prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, 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 doesn’t like that word, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

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

Conclusion

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

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