Let's go up here. It's a cul-de-sac,” barked Iain Gray, demonstrating the qualities that made him a shoo-in in for the top job in Scots Labour. It turned out to be a prescient remark.

This had not been the most auspicious day to begin campaigning in Glenrothes, the most important by-election since, well, since the last time the Government took a hammering.

With a smirr of rain covering the labyrinth of housing estates, the gaggle of Labour Party workers who had come along gripped red balloons as the only sure way of being seen. The biggish guns were here too. Mr Gray had turned up with Scotland Secretary Jim Murphy to support their candidate, the headmasterly Lindsay Roy, whose “character and personality” would belie his underdog tag in the weeks ahead, we were assured.

But campaigning on a suburban estate, even on a dreich weekday afternoon, has its dangers. And if you choose to call on a house with a hefty 4X4 in the driveway you're probably asking for an earful about petrol prices. Or road tax. Or both.

So it proved for Messrs Gray, Murphy and Roy who got both barrels from Sheena Pirrie and her husband Ian, paid up members of the Caravan Club's militant tendency. The Pirries had done their homework. For every £2,000 they spent on their Toyota Landcruiser, the Government picked up two thirds of the money in petrol revenues. Not to mention the £400 lost to road tax.

“People who drive these get called for everything. And yet you want us to vote for him? Really?” she demanded.

Mr Roy - “a new voice for Fife” - stammered his reply, “Thank you, I'd far rather you tell us.”

The politicians beat a retreat, and were soon seen happily kicking balls about for the benefit of the cameras. No longer in the first flush of youth, Mr Roy once trained with St Johnstone but now plays football in his church five-a-side team. He may need God on his side in this campaign too.

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