🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Profession: Retired underwriter

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re planning rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, 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 long time to be at sea

For starters

Eva: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

Steve: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, pleasant person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the numbers 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 governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed 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 informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the wage of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later 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 international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, 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 Ukraine started, they used that money to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. 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 discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I hail from the East End. 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 that local market, I look like a foreigner. 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 poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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