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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired underwriter

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

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Evie, 25, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, 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 seemed like a very intelligent, articulate, pleasant person

She: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes 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. However I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments 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 – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on innovation

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 new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. 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 don’t like pollution, 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 energy revenues soared after the conflict began, they used that money to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour 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 use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

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 modernized. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. 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 consented to substitute a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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