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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Essex

Profession: Retired underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His focus in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

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

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

For starters

Eva: Steve seemed there to have a nice time, to be open

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

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, 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 are native to the area, not just white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. Whereas I just don’t think the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Pay are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was 16 and abroad when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, 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 skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

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 continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll need in the future. 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

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, 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 extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on faith

He: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street 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 Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

She: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the train stop

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