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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Essex

Profession: Retired underwriter

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and supported the SDP

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

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

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

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

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

She: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was very good

The big beef

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, not just Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could come here and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, farms. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they used that money to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, turbine fields and hydro

For afters

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

He: I hail 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 appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a somewhat racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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