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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Conservative, apart from when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Eva, 25, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

Eva: Steve seemed there to have a nice time, to be open

He: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, pleasant person

She: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; later it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling 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 greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. 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 deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a embrace at the station

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