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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

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

Amuse bouche: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, 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 occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – people could come here and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. 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 green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

He: I hail from the East End. 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 that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

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

Conclusion

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

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