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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

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

Steve: She came across as a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

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

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped 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 great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll need 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 environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

For afters

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I come from the East End. 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 that local market, I appear out of place. People stare 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 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 enclave?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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