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Meeting the Individuals

Steve, 64, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired underwriter

Voting record: Typically Conservative, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His focus in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Profession: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her native land, Aotearoa, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

For starters

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be open

He: She came across as a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I have no desire to reside in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have exploited 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 child support, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin

He: The French president spent two years getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; 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

He: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after the conflict began, they used that money to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. 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 rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

He: I come 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 very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe community?

Eva: I feel like Muslim people are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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