🔗 Share this article

Meeting the Participants

Steve, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former insurance professional

Political history: Typically Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the SDP

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, the capital

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be receptive

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

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

Key disagreement

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, 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

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. 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

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. 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 great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. We found consensus 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 used that money to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments 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 modernized. 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 predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – 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?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

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