BARRIE HUDSON chats to Talis Kimberley-Fairbourn, standing for the Green Party in South Swindon, in our series on all the candidates in the General Election on May 7.

TALIS Kimberley-Fairbourn is a 47-year-old folk singer, songwriter and environmental activist.

For 10 years she has lived in Wroughton with her IT professional husband, Simon, and has two children.

Over the last decade or so her songs have increasingly reflected horror at injustice and the needless destruction of the environment.

Talis works in other ways to protect the environment, including founding a local composting scheme, organising ‘junk swaps’ and teaching skills ranging from gardening to knitting.

“Around two years ago,” she said, “some changes in my thinking culminated in my looking around for a political way to affect the current unacceptable situation, particularly that the UK-wide other parties seem to consider a degree of destitution and homelessness and vast social inequality as collateral damage in pursuit of what they consider a strong economy.

“Also, that they consider the environment, climate change and the over-use of finite resources as a problem that they can indefinitely put off dealing with.

“I think they’re wrong. I don’t think we can afford to do that.”

Her choice of party was carefully considered.

“I looked at the others. I went with no preconceptions. I looked at the other parties and they all fell short in terms of commitment to the environment and to any sense of equality and social justice. So I looked at the Green Party, which I had heard of but never interacted with until around two years ago.

“I first stood as a Green Party candidate last year in the borough elections in the ward I live in.

“The Green Party locally hoped at that point to field more local candidates than ever before, and indeed we fielded 12, which was our biggest ticket to date.

“Clearly, my personal political journey of the last couple of years is mirrored by that of very many thousands of people countrywide.

“With the Green surge quadrupling membership nationally within a year, a small local group rapidly grew to a vibrant, committed set of activists who could now field not only parliamentary candidates for the north and south but also a full slate of local candidates for the first time in Swindon’s history.

“In every case, where somebody is standing for the Green Party, to whom I have spoken personally, they have not gone into this because they wanted power or status or authority, but because they have despaired at what they see going undone and unsaid, and like me have decided the only reasonable thing to do is put our shoulders to the wheel and be the change we want to see.

“I didn’t wake up one morning, thinking, ‘Let’s do politics for a bit – that’ll be fun.’ I wanted there to be a strong voice addressing the changes I believe our society needs.

“It’s not in me to snipe from the sidelines and say, ‘Somebody ought to do this, somebody ought to say that, and why doesn’t somebody have a go at so-and-so?’

“Sometimes you have to stand up and say, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, but I’m prepared to try.’

“As a politician, I don’t have all the answers, but I’m not afraid to say when I don’t know and I’m not afraid to ask and learn.

“What I do hold to very firmly is the fact that my personal ethics and principles I see matched in the policies of the party I chose to join.

“I believe that as a rich nation we can and should do better at behaving as a community and looking after each other.”

Also standing in South Swindon are: Robert Buckland (Conservative); Damon Hooton (Liberal Democrat); John Short (UKIP); Anne Snelgrove (Labour).