🔗 Share this article

Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Typically Conservative, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

Eva: Steve seemed there to have a nice time, to be open

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 rich sweet treat, it was very good

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. However I just don’t think the figures are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP 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 kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration 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 moving towards 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 mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory 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: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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