🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Profession: Former underwriter

Political history: Usually Conservative, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and supported the SDP

Interesting fact: His focus in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Amuse bouche: Eva has been employed 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 seemed focused on enjoying the meal, to be open

He: She seemed like a very intelligent, well-spoken, nice person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that British people who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers 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 believe that governments have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

Eva: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could come here and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the system; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, farms. She understood 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 great to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, 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 Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity 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 hydro

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments 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 gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit discriminatory, or xenophobic

Takeaway

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

She: We both said that we’d had a lovely time