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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former underwriter

Voting record: Typically Tory, except when he lived in “the socialist republic of south Hackney” and voted for the SDP

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, 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”

Evie, twenty-five, the capital

Profession: Psychology graduate

Political history: 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 longest trip was six months, which is a long time to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

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

Eva: I had a caprese salad, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being reduced. He thinks that UK residents who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the things that they need, because more and more people are arriving. Whereas I just disagree that the numbers are so problematic

He: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Pay are kept low, 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 Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and receive solely the salary of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent two years getting the EU to do away with the scheme; it was reformed in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been service industry, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship 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 agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration 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 moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We briefly discussed anti-Muslim sentiment, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed worried by radical ideologies entering – he did note that a lot of the people in the Arab world were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on religion

Steve: 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 that local market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word segregated area. 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 enclave?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Takeaway

Steve: 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