‘Morning, my lovely, I’m campaigning on behalf of the Resettlement party. You’ve heard of us? But of course. Who hasn’t? We’re setting the pace, aren’t we? We’re on all the front pages. Can Resettlement rely on your vote?’
‘Well I don’t rightly… I mean who are you going to…?’
‘If you’re born here, you’re OK. You’re in, you’re one of us.’
‘And if you’re not…?’
‘You’re looking at a package to help you return from whence you came. A tidy sum.’
‘But… the nurses and doctors from abroad? A third, I read it somewhere, of all our medical workers… Who’s going to replace them?’
‘Propaganda, madam. They want you to believe that.’
‘I mean I’m seventy and my husband’s older. We both rely on the NHS.’
‘We’re putting twenty billion extra into it. Have your read our leaflet? Here, take one.’
‘Twenty…? So you’ve got nurses and GPs coming from…?’
‘From within, yes. We up the pay and we anticipate a flood of indigenous young people being attracted into the health industry.’
‘And then there’s all them carers. Three ladies down this road have carers, all from Africa. Marvellous they are.’
‘They’re taking jobs from people born here.’
‘Born what? Have you seen some of them round here? Taking drugs, getting benefits. You’re going to train them up as surgeons? That tubby Tracy Perkins next door, never worked a day in her life. Have her dress my leg? I wouldn’t let her touch my dog.’
‘So: would you consider voting for us?’
‘Well I mean… my husband wasn’t born in Wales.’
‘One of our colonies, was it?’
‘It may have been a colony once, yes. I mean what hasn’t been?’
‘One of our non-white former colonies?’
‘Sid’s white. There’s smugglers in his family, going back. But Sid, yes, he’s palish.’
‘Pale? That could be a mitigating factor.’
‘I mean my first husband, Charlie, was dark. He were a succulent peach of a man. Died young. That’s why the heath service matters to me. But Sid he’s a crab apple, rotten to the core. Got meanness tattooed on his heart, he has. He’s from Cornwall.’
‘We in Wales will have a reciprocal arrangement with our neighbours across the border. Rest assured, nobody’ll be coming for Sid.’
‘That’s a shame. I wouldn’t mind if he went, actually. Now my children, they are mixed race.’
‘Mixed…?’
‘Born here, mind.’
‘Ah.’
‘Charlie was West Indian, see. Terrible wasn’t it, that scandal.’
‘What scandal?’
‘Windrush. All them West Indians living here for decades, paying taxes and insurance, then having to prove who they were, and next thing they’re being sent back to a country they don’t know.’
‘Your vote, missus…?’
‘You’d’ve sent Charlie home, wouldn’t you? You’ll want to “return” my kids too, no doubt.’
‘I’ll put you down as undecided, shall I?’
‘Resettling? You can take Sid if you want. He’s yours. But you’re not getting my kids. Nor my vote. Hop it.’
