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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Usually Conservative, except when he resided in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the missile silos”

Eva, 25, London

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be receptive

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

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

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I maintain that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on child support, on schooling, on technology

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a new light. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the country they came from

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undermining British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; since then it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Sharing plate

He: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, 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 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 proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a lot of the people in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions 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 modernized. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

She: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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