ONE figure looms over the political scene in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath – former prime minister Gordon Brown, who represented this patch in various forms from 1983 to 2015.

Lesley Backhouse (below), the SNP’s candidate for the area, is quick to shoot down any suggestion that the ghost of Broon haunts the Lang Toun.

“Gordon Brown, what did he ever actually do for Kirkcaldy?” she asks, with audible impatience.

We are sitting in the handsome Kirkcaldy Library, which is also a museum of the town’s storied history.

A glass case holds the pistols used in Scotland’s last fatal duel, fought late in the summer of 1826.

And it was to here, this small town on the banks of the Forth, that the great Adam Smith retired in 1766 to write The Wealth of Nations, the fundamental work of classical economics.

READ MORE: Mhairi Black wades into David Tennant 'shut up' row with Kemi Badenoch on LGBT rights

Economics will define how many cast their votes at this election, with household finances under intense strain amid rising prices, sluggish wage growth – or in some cases, stubborn stagnation – and the difficulties caused by years of austerity and the lingering effects of Liz Truss’s brief premiership.

In The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote that it was “not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest”.

But in Kirkcaldy and across Scotland, many do expect their dinner from the benevolence of charity in the form of food banks.

Backhouse calls food banks an “aberration” and believes that with independence Scotland could banish them from the country.

But is independence on the ballot at this election? For her Labour rival Melanie Ward (above), this vote is not about constitutional issues but those economic pressures facing people every day.

Ward says this election is “an opportunity for change that Scotland cannot afford to miss” and claims that Labour will bring jobs, investment and “proper representation” to the area.

Backhouse meanwhile has put independence “front and centre” of her campaign and believes it is inextricably linked to tackling poverty and falling living standards.

READ MORE: SNP to win majority of Scottish seats and Tories zero, poll projects

If, as predicted, Keir Starmer (below) becomes the next prime minister, he may find in his in-tray at Number 10 a request from First Minister John Swinney for a second referendum, so long as the SNP win a majority of seats in Scotland.

If, as predicted, Starmer turns down this request, echoing the words of prime ministers past that now is not the time, Backhouse suggests the independence movement must find alternative routes to settle the constitutional question.

Citing the “civil disobedience” movements which stopped the Skye Bridge tolls and the poll tax, she says Yessers could seek to explore other avenues to force the issue.

“I’m going to have to re-read up on what the Suffragettes did and find out what’s within the Westminster rules and regulations, things that you can do within there to push forward,” she says.

READ MORE: Anas Sarwar says Labour candidate lied with claim party 'helped Tories'

“If they’re denying democracy then we have to use every power available to us to either discuss or get them to come to the table.”

Ward dismisses the SNP candidate’s suggestion as “putting party before country” and claims voters want “action to bring down bills, deliver jobs and rebuild our public services” rather than “more division”.

An otherwise simple story about the rising fortunes of the Labour Party and the dwindling successes of the once-indominable SNP is complicated by the presence of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath’s MP prior to the election, Neale Hanvey (below).

The Alba candidate took the seat from Labour in 2019. He was ditched by the SNP after he was accused of antisemitism and Hanvey highlights that he was elected as an “independent nationalist”, though he still appeared as the party's candidate on the ballot paper.

He is bullish about his prospects in a week’s time. “Alba Party are mobilising the vote in this election,” he says.

“If we weren’t fighting in my constituency, then close to a quarter of the vote – that’s almost half of independence supporters disaffected from the SNP – would be left with a choice of staying at home or voting for Unionist Labour.”

While Ward is clearly held in high esteem by the Labour high heid yins, the former Medical Aid for Palestine chief executive caused ripples when she was parachuted in after Wilma Brown was suspended for liking offensive tweets.

A Fife councillor in the running for the selection quit the party, accusing Labour high command of imposing Ward, who until recently lived in London.

Whoever wins here, it will be a story that speaks more widely to the state of Scottish politics in the aftermath of the General Election. Fife is, according to Backhouse, “Scotland in miniature”.

If the SNP can win, they will be doing well and if Alba hold the seat, they will have defied all expectations. But if Labour regain Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, the story they will be telling is that of the start of their Scottish comeback.  

Candidates looking for encouragement that nothing is a foregone conclusion until every ballot is counted should refer to that deadly Kirkcaldy duel nearly 200 years ago.

One August morning, linen merchant David Landale and Bank of Scotland agent George Morgan, a former soldier stood at 12 paces from one another and fired.

Landale had never even held a gun before. He came out alive.