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Introducing the Individuals

Steve, 64, Essex

Profession: Former insurance professional

Political history: Typically Tory, except when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”

Eva, 25, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has been employed as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was six months, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

He: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, nice person

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

Key disagreement

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, including non-white Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are arriving. Whereas I just don’t think the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I maintain that authorities have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on schooling, on innovation

She: I don’t have that much knowledge of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about EU labor migrants – people 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 revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were brought in; since then it’s been service industry, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop eco-friendly systems

Eva: 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 need in the future. 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 hydro

For afters

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I didn’t think accurate. I think it’s prejudiced 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. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I feel like followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

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

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