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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Essex

Profession: Former underwriter

Voting record: Typically Conservative, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim 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, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

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

Steve: She seemed like a very intelligent, articulate, pleasant person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, 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 oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

She: 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 small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

Steve: 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. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word segregated area. 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 theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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