I AM not doing Sheila and Aubrey Attwater a disservice when I say they are not your typical politicians – indeed, it is a badge they wear with a towering sense of pride.

Although they covet a seat at the political banquet, they are not interested in dining with their fellow guests; they would much rather kick them out before the welcome arrival of port and cigars.

“We are just rebellious,” says Sheila, 76, who is this year standing for UKIP in Blunsdon and Highworth.

Wearing their finest anti-establishment robes, the couple undoubtedly see themselves as subversives entering the lion’s corrupt and iniquitous den to speak for the forgotten and dispossessed.

For years UKIP has modelled itself as the only party that serves the interests of the working class. Like the early European Marxists, they are united by a deep suspicion of the bourgeois. It is a claim that has routinely been deemed spurious, but, nevertheless, it is something in which the Attwaters wholeheartedly believe.

As Sheila says: “We need people power. Not a revolution, just more people to speak up and demand change. We are here to speak for ordinary people, those who are usually ignored by politicians.”

One particular cross the Attwaters bear is, they claim, the way in which the party is portrayed in the media.

The sartorially extravagant Aubrey, 77, who is this year hoping to turn Gorse Hill & Pinehurst purple, said: “We are always being attacked as racists. But it’s nothing to do with race.”

Sheila agreed: “The party is being misrepresented because we make the other parties uncomfortable. We talk about immigration and get labelled racist, but it’s not a question of being racist, it’s a question of being practical and looking at facts.

“We are a small country with limited facilities, and high levels of immigration just don’t fit. People are ignoring it and I don’t like the injustice of being labelled wrongly, like we are.”

The amateur astrologers and avid Russia Today watchers, who have been 27 years married, complain that council tax is rising while public services are shrinking. They criticise the council for contributing £5m towards the new museum and art gallery, calling it a “skewed priority”.

“It’s a question of prioritising. The art gallery is way down the list of priorities for Swindon. I think there should have been a mini referendum about it.”

Sheila reveals that she did not at first want to stand in the election. But after attending the party’s manifesto launch, she was bitten by the bug and decided to give it her best shot.

“I saw other people there and I realised I wasn’t the sole voice in the wilderness.”

They promised to tackle homelessness, something the jovial Aubrey had once experienced, and vowed to fix the “crumbling” roads of their respective wards.

When I asked what purpose UKIP served now the party’s raison d’être had finally been realised, Sheila said: “We are not out yet, and we keep giving things away. And then there’s a two year transition period that we don’t need. The elite are all ganging up to try to reverse Brexit, which makes us even more determined.”

Swindon is one of the only towns in the country that has not seen a complete collapse of the UKIP machine. They are contesting all 19 seats this year, and although the Attwaters resisted the urge to predict the outcome, they confessed to being quietly optimistic.

“I’ve been an underdog all my life,” said Aubrey, clearly relishing the impossible challenge ahead.