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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Essex

Profession: Retired insurance professional

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

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, 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 significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

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

Steve: She came across as a very bright, well-spoken, pleasant person

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

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just don’t think the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, 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 skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. 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 use planes. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

He: I come from the eastern part of London. 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 gaze 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 deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown 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 hug at the train stop

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