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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Retired insurance professional

Political history: Usually Conservative, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

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

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

He: She came across as a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

She: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and not living here when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments 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 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 had a little look at me about that. I used the word segregated area. 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 agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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