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Introducing the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Retired insurance professional

Voting record: Usually Conservative, except when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the SDP

Amuse bouche: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is boring, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, 25, the capital

Profession: Graduate in psychology

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

Amuse bouche: 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 on a boat

Initial impressions

Eva: Steve seemed focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

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

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who already live here, not just white British, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

He: I’m for qualified migrants, 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 can’t get people to do without increasing salaries. Wages are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on technology

Eva: I am not deeply informed of Brexit, because I was sixteen and not living here when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He told 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 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was reformed in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, 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 value fresh atmosphere, 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 Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to build green infrastructure

She: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the limited quantity we’ll need 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, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on anti-Muslim sentiment, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed worried by extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not accurate. I think it’s prejudiced to form opinions based on religion

He: I come 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: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People gaze 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 denotes poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I agreed to use a alternative term – maybe community?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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