🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Retired underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be receptive

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

She: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, 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 fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

Eva: 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 new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, 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 Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration 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 advancing to greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

For afters

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

He: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. 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 segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

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

Conclusion

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

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