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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Political history: Typically Tory, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, New Zealand, she supported both 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

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

Steve: She came across as a very bright, articulate, nice person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people 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 don’t think the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, 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 salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

He: 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration 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 advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, 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 stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. 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 theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the station

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