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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Occupation: Retired insurance professional

Political history: Usually Tory, except 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 dull, but it’s not when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

She: Steve seemed focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

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

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just don’t think the figures 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 believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on child support, on schooling, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could come here and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, 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. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat discriminatory, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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