🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Retired insurance professional

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

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 UK residents who are native to the area, not just white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more 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 love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. 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 need in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. 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 fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

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: populated by professionals. 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 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 different word – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

He: I think we parted on good terms. We had a embrace at the station

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