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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired insurance professional

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

Amuse bouche: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning rescuing people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Political history: 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 on a boat

Initial impressions

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

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

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

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about EU labor migrants – people could come here and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in 2018. Previously, posted workers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, 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 Norway?” Their oil and gas profits soared after the conflict began, they used that money to develop eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll require in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

For afters

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

He: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People gaze 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 implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a somewhat discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

Steve: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the station

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