By-elections are often colourful and chaotic but there has never been anything quite like the contest taking place in Rochdale right now.
The vote today - caused by the death of the town’s widely respected Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd - should have been relatively straightforward for Sir Keir Starmer’s party, riding high on the back of a string of by-election victories around the country.
But the entry into the race of maverick former MP and left-wing firebrand George Galloway - and the spectacular implosion of Labour’s campaign - has thrown the contest wide open.
Mr Galloway is mainly targeting Rochdale’s Muslim population, who make up about 30% of the electorate, many of whom are angry about what is happening in Gaza.
“The people of Gaza don’t have a vote in this election, you do,” reads one of his campaign leaflets.
At a meeting at the town’s Kashmir Youth Project, he says that, if elected, he will “enter the chamber of the House of Commons like a tornado” and “shake the walls for Gaza”.
He claims a victory for him in Rochdale, a small town near Manchester, will be noticed “by the people in Gaza, by the people in Tel Aviv, but most importantly by the front benches in Parliament.”
Labour’s candidate Azhar Ali, who had backed an immediate ceasefire in Gaza before Keir Starmer’s calls this week for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, was disowned by the party when a recording of him making allegedly antisemitic comments emerged, for which he apologised.
Labour members in the town were ordered to stop campaigning for him - and the shutters came down on the party’s campaign headquarters.
But Mr Ali is still officially Labour’s candidate - that’s how he will appear on the ballot paper this coming Thursday because it was legally too late to change. If he is elected, he will sit in the Commons as an independent MP.
But it was clear from speaking to voters in the rain-lashed town centre on Tuesday evening that some Labour supporters were either not aware of him being dropped by the party or did not care.
Paul Walsh, a 56-year-old roofer, said he knew all about the controversy but he was still going to vote Labour anyway.
Rumours had been swirling that Mr Ali’s supporters were still campaigning for him - although there was little evidence of this beyond some mocked up social media images depicting Keir Starmer as a clown.
On Thursday, Mr Ali broke cover to say that these images had nothing to do with him.
In a statement, he said that he had been “a Labour supporter for more than 30 years and has Labour values”. He added that he was campaigning and standing to be Rochdale’s MP and that Sir Tony was a friend and he “wants to continue his good work”.
Little wonder some voters seem confused about who to back.
Wendy Fleming, who recently moved to Rochdale from Ireland, half-jokingly suggests that the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate Ravin Rodent Subortna seems to be the only one talking sense.
“That actually hurts my soul,” she says. “Voting is something I really do take seriously, always have done, but this time it’s so difficult. It’s really just going to be the best of a bad bunch.”
Just about everyone you speak to is fed up with the bad press Rochdale has received in recent years.
The town, in the foothills of the Pennines, has a proud history - it was the birthplace of the Cooperative movement and 1930s film legend Gracie Fields.
But it has recently become associated with child sexual exploitation and grooming - something that is an issue at the ballot box, with William Howarth standing as the Parents Against Grooming UK candidate.
The town centre has had a makeover, with a new shopping centre, and its Grade I listed town hall has just benefited from a £20m restoration. But social deprivation’ , poor housing and crime are rife.
George Galloway is eager not to be seen as a single-issue campaigner and is promising to “make Rochdale great again”.
He is calling for the local hospital’s maternity ward to be re-opened - and has even promised to help save the local football club, Rochdale AFC, which is facing bankruptcy after being relegated from the Football League.
Many young Muslim voters in the town have been energised by his campaign - both for its focus on Gaza and his promise to tackle the town’s social ills.
Area Shakeel, who is studying to be a mental health nurse and volunteers at a local soup kitchen, says: “He’s actually listened to our views and our opinions in a diverse community - you feel like you are being heard when you are speaking to him.”