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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Former insurance professional

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

Amuse bouche: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, the capital

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her home country, Aotearoa, she supported both progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a significant duration to be at sea

Initial impressions

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

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

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I maintain that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money 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 in favour 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

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, 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 radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

Steve: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

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

Takeaway

He: I think we parted on good terms. We had a embrace at the station

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