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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Former insurance professional

Political history: Usually Tory, apart from when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

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

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

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

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes 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 entering. 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 authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals 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. Naturally, 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 segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

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

Takeaway

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 lovely time