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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Essex

Profession: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Typically Tory, apart from when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His focus in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the missile silos”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

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

Initial impressions

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

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

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was earning significantly higher than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a different energy source, 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 the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

She: 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 limited quantity we’ll need in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

He: I hail 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: populated by professionals. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze 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 implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a somewhat discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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