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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Profession: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Usually Tory, apart from when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty 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 the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, the capital

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she supported both Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

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

Steve: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, pleasant person

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

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white Caucasian Britons, don’t have as much access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I maintain that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they can’t get people to do without raising wages. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on education, on innovation

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

Steve: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in 2018. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were brought in; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel 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 appreciate rural areas. We agreed 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 build eco-friendly systems

She: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was supportive of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the coming years. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and hydro

For afters

She: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

He: I come from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – 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 feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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