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Meeting the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Former insurance professional

Political history: Typically Tory, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and supported the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Eva, twenty-five, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

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

He: She seemed like a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was very good

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just don’t think the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on education, on innovation

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could come here and only be paid the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Sharing plate

He: It would be great to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

Eva: 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 small amount we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

Dessert topics

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

He: I come 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 Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance 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 poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I feel like followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

Steve: 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