🔗 Share this article

Introducing the Participants

Stephen, sixty-four, Canvey Island

Occupation: Retired underwriter

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

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is boring, but it’s far from it when you’re planning rescuing people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Profession: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a significant duration to be on a boat

Initial impressions

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

Steve: She came across as a very bright, well-spoken, pleasant person

She: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a creamy dessert thing, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was certainly on the side of immigration being curtailed. 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 don’t think the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Wages are kept low, so taxes have to be kept low, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

She: 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 told me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the country they came from

He: The French president spent 24 months getting the EU to do away with the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Previously, posted workers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under the former PM, it was oil workers that were imported; since then it’s been hospitality, farms. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues

Common ground

Steve: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after the conflict began, they allocated those funds to build eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was in favour of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll need in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards greener solutions, windfarms and water power

For afters

Eva: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a lot of the people in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on religion

Steve: I hail from the East End. 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 appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She gave a slight glance at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I agreed to use a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the news outlets as engaging in misconduct. It appears a little bit discriminatory, or prejudiced against foreigners

Conclusion

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

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