🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Conservative, apart from when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the SDP

Interesting fact: His focus 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 DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Evie, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

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

He: She came across as a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

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

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are that bad

Steve: 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 governments have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He explained 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

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. 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 Norway?” 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 in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been modernized. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. 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 Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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