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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former insurance professional

Political history: Usually Tory, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her native land, New Zealand, she supported both Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

Steve: She seemed like a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, don’t have as much access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology

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 EU labor migrants – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later 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

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. 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 used that money to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and hydro

For afters

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on faith

He: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, 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 very Muslim. 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 denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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