🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Former insurance professional

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

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was half a year, 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 intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

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

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, 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 the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need 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

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. 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 appear out of place. People stare 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 doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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