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Meeting the Individuals

Stephen, 64, Canvey Island

Profession: Former underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was kidnap and ransom: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s not when you’re discussing evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the DPRK have opened the weapon systems”

Evie, 25, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Voting record: In her home country, Aotearoa, she supported both progressive parties

Amuse bouche: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her longest trip was half a year, which is a significant duration to be at sea

For starters

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

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

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

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He believes that British people who already live here, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are arriving. However I just disagree that the figures are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have exploited immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without raising wages. Pay are suppressed, so levies have to be kept low, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on education, on innovation

She: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He explained 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: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was oil workers 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

Sharing plate

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their oil and gas profits soared after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll need in the coming years. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, turbine fields and water power

Dessert topics

Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s prejudiced to make judgments based on religion

He: I hail from the eastern part of London. I asked her if she’d been to that district, 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 gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word segregated area. Eva’s got Eastern European roots – she objects to the term, to her it implies deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I feel like Muslim people are really overrepresented in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a somewhat racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

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

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