Occupation: Former underwriter
Political history: Usually Tory, apart from when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and supported the SDP
Interesting fact: His specialty in insurance was kidnap and ransom: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from South Korea because the DPRK have opened the missile silos”
Occupation: Psychology graduate
Voting record: In her home country, New Zealand, she supported both progressive parties
Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her most extended voyage was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea
Eva: Steve seemed there to have a nice time, to be open
He: She came across as a very intelligent, articulate, pleasant person
She: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious
Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just don’t think the figures are that bad
He: I’m for skilled immigration, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that governments have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we are unable to improve services – spend more money on childcare, on education, on technology
She: I don’t have that much knowledge of Brexit, because I was 16 and not living here when it occurred. He explained it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and receive solely the wage of the their nation of origin
He: Macron spent two years getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in two thousand eighteen. Before that, migrant laborers 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 grasped that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was earning significantly higher than international colleagues
He: It would be great to have a alternative power, come off of oil. I don’t like pollution, I love the clean air, I love the countryside. We agreed on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to build green infrastructure
Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the small amount we’ll require in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be advancing to environmentally friendly options, turbine fields and water power
Eva: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did note that a many individuals in the Arab world were radical, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory 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. Obviously, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I look like a foreigner. People stare 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 Polish-Jewish ancestry – she objects to the term, to her it implies poverty. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes theirs.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?
Eva: I believe that Muslim people are really overrepresented in the news outlets as doing things wrong. It appears a little bit racist, or xenophobic
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
Elara is a passionate esports journalist with over a decade of experience covering major gaming events and trends.