A cigarette paper constituency is how taxi driver Brett Scott describes Crewe and Nantwich. As in: that’s all there is in it.

“Not that it interests me, pal,” the 53-year-old says. “They’re all the same, aren’t they? Tell you one thing, do another. I’ll never vote again after what’s gone on with Brexit.”

Ten minutes later, he is dropping me off at an ice cream van factory in Crewe which chancellor Sajid Javid is visiting. “Tell him to take some money off a pint,” Scott declares as we pull up. “Then I might vote.”

This seat is one of the tightest marginals and most crucial electoral battlegrounds anywhere in the UK.

Just 48 votes separated first from second place in 2017. It was so close between Tory incumbent Edward Timpson and Labour challenger Laura Smith that two recounts were ordered. Smith was only announced as the winner as 7am approached. People were already starting work by the time the former teacher left the Crewe Lifestyle Centre blinking into the morning with her new job.

“I’m dreading another night like that,” she tells me later. This time round, the mother-of-two adds, she needs some sleep because it’s her daughter’s nativity the next day: “No way I’m missing it, she’s a sheep.”

General election: On the campaign trail Show all 114 1 /114 General election: On the campaign trail General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson drives a Union flag-themed JCB, with the words "Get Brexit Done" inside the digger bucket, through a fake wall emblazoned with the word "GRIDLOCK", during a general election campaign event at JCB construction company in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail A sculpture of an owl is bedecked with an EU beret as Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson gestures during an interview at a general election campaign event in Bath AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson (C) talks during a question and answer session on a general election campaign visit to Ferguson's Transport in the town of Washington, west of Sunderland AFP/Getty General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson tries to save a shot during a warm up before a girls football match while on the campaign trail in Cheadle Hulme, northwest England POOL/AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn makes cup of coffee as he campaigns in Barry, south Wales AFP General election: On the campaign trail Nicola Sturgeon poses as she launches the SNP campaign bus tour, at Queensferry Crossing in Edinburgh, Scotland AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson reacts as he changes a wheel of a Formula One car during a Conservative Party general election campaign visit to Red Bull Racing in Milton Keynes POOL/AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits a Christmas market in Salisbury REUTERS General election: On the campaign trail Liberal Democrat Leader Jo Swinson on the election campaign bus on route to Chelmsford PA General election: On the campaign trail Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn talking to a university worker outside Birkbeck/SOAS University of London, at the announcement of his parties of the plan for the extension of workers' rights PA General election: On the campaign trail Nicola Sturgeon plays a game with string during a visit to Perth and District YMCA Getty Images General election: On the campaign trail Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage picks up a copy of The Brexiteer during a visit to JPI Printers in Dinnington PA General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson, centre, talks to veteran James Gammer as he visits a veterans centre AP General election: On the campaign trail SNP supporters meet First Minister Nicola Sturgeon following her address during a St Andrews day election speech Getty General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn has a photo taken outside Birkbeck/SOAS University PA General election: On the campaign trail Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson during a visit to the Cardiff United Synagogue PA General election: On the campaign trail Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage reacts as he attends an election debate ITV/Reuters General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn wears a jacked displaying Labour's slogan 'For the many, not the few' EPA General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson on The Andrew Marr Show Getty General election: On the campaign trail Nicola Sturgeon plays with local children during a visit to the Jelly Tots & Cookies Play Cafe in Uddingston, South Lanarkshire PA General election: On the campaign trail Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn eats some chips in Whitby, northern England AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson and Conservative MP George Eustice, left, tour 'Rodda's Clotted Cream' whilst campaigning in Cornwall Getty General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson during a visit to Dunkertons Cider Company, an organic and plastic free brewery in Cheltenham PA General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn holds up unreacted documents with NHS staff. Mr Corbyn released uncensored official documents which he says provides confirmation that the NHS is on the table in trade talks with the USA EPA General election: On the campaign trail Nigel Farage meets locals in Barnsley market PA General election: On the campaign trail Nicola Sturgeon launches the SNP's general election manifesto Getty General election: On the campaign trail Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn addresses the audience during the launch of Labour's environmental policy in Southampton Getty General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson tries an apple as he visits Healey's Cornish Cyder Farm in Callestick AP General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson helps make a chicken tikka masala during a visit to the Ashoka restaurant in Bearsden, Glasgow PA General election: On the campaign trail Nigel Farage playing golf on a range at One Stop Golf in Hull PA General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn addresses the audience during a climate emergency rally in Falmouth Getty General election: On the campaign trail Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson meets supporters during a visit to Dunkertons Cider Company PA General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson visits Chulmleigh College AP General election: On the campaign trail Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as he appearing on the BBC political programme The Andrew Neil Show. The opposition leader defended his handling of anti-Semitism allegations after Britain's most senior rabbi suggested the issue was a "new poison" within the party that had been "sanctioned from the very top". In an unprecedented intervention ahead of next month's election, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis suggested Corbyn was "unfit for high office" due to his perceived failure to clamp down on the problem within the party BBC/AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson alongside Julian Dunkerton, whose father founded and ran Dunkertons Organic Cider, during a visit to the company's organic and plastic free brewery in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, whilst campaigning for the General Election. PA Photo. Picture date: Tuesday November 26, 2019. See PA story POLITICS Election. Photo credit should read: Aaron Chown/PA Wire Aaron Chown PA General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson launches the Conservative Party Scottish Manifesto in North Queensferry Getty General election: On the campaign trail Britain's Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn poses with WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) supporters after he outlined Labour's plans to repay the "historical debt of honour" owed to women born in the 1950's AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson alongside the Lib Dem's candidate for Truro and Falmouth, Ruth Gripper, and founder of Finisterre, Tom Kay, during a tour of the British surfing brand, which creates sustainable surfing gear, in St Agnes, Cornwall PA General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson poses with sheep as he visits the Royal Welsh Showground, in Llanelwedd PA General election: On the campaign trail A coalition of NHS (National Health Service) campaigners led by "Keep Our NHS Public" and "We Own It", pose for photographs with masks of US President Donal Trump, right, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson carving up the NHS with a giant knife and fork, as they take part in a demonstration on Parliament Square. The campaigners are calling for the NHS to be taken "off the table" in a trade deal with the US by ending privatisation in the health service and restoring it to a wholly publicly owned and provided service AP General election: On the campaign trail Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage visits Plymouth Fisheries at Sutton Harbour Getty General election: On the campaign trail SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon gives her party's candidate for North East Fife Stephen Gethins a haircut, during a visit to Craig Boyd Hairdressing in Leven PA General election: On the campaign trail Vans belonging to The Community United against Labour Party anti-Semitism group, Culpa, parked next to a police car ahead of the Labour Race and Faith Manifesto launch Getty General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson prepares to serve food at the Royal Welsh Showground PA General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn tries his hand at bricklaying during a visit to the West Nottinghamshire College Construction Centre, in Ashfield PA General election: On the campaign trail Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson during a visit to the London design museum to discuss the party's tech policy PA General election: On the campaign trail Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage visits Seaham Getty General election: On the campaign trail Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives for the Conservative party's manifesto launch in Telford Reuters General election: On the campaign trail Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn meets supporters during a visit to Thurrock in Essex PA General election: On the campaign trail Protesters wait for the arrival of Prime Minister Boris Johnson ahead of the launch of his party's manifesto PA General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson gestures from atop a crane during a visit to an eco home building site in Sheffield AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn meets a supporter on a train on his return from a visit to Sheffield PA General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a visit to Bassetlaw District General Hospital in Worksop, Nottinghamshire PA General election: On the campaign trail Nigel Farage campaigns in Hartlepool Getty Images General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn outside an Amazon depot in Sheffield, to announce plans for a workers' rights revolution and to ensure big businesses pay their fair share of taxes PA General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, during their successive appearances on BBC Question Time Leaders' Special at the Octagon in Sheffield PA General election: On the campaign trail Liberal Democratic Party leader Jo Swinson visits a primary school in Cambridge EPA General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson lays a brick during a visit to the Barratt Homes Getty General election: On the campaign trail Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn attends the launch of the party's election manifesto at Birmingham City University Getty General election: On the campaign trail Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage holds his party policy document during the party's policy launch in Westminster PA General election: On the campaign trail SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon joined Dundee East candidate Stewart Hosie to made a keynote speech at The Quay Getty General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a part of an electrical appliance during a General Election campaign trail stop at Ebac in Newton Aycliffe AP General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn poses during a visit to The Oatcake Boat on the Trent & Mersey Canal, Stoke Getty General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson and Willie Rennie Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats gesture, during a visit to Glasgow Reuters General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a visit to Jimmy Egan's Boxing Academy at Wythenshawe, while on the campaign trail ahead of the General Election. PA Photo. Picture date: Tuesday November 19, 2019. See PA story POLITICS Election. Photo credit should read: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire Stefan Rousseau PA General election: On the campaign trail Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson (left) during a visit to the Gurdwara Singh Sabha Temple in Glasgow PA General election: On the campaign trail Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meets Colin and his mother after a speech at the University of Lancaster Getty Images General election: On the campaign trail Britain's Green Party co-leaders Jonathan Bartley, Sian Berry, and deputy leader Amelia Womack, wave during the launch of the party manifesto at the Observatory at London Wetland Centre Reuters General election: On the campaign trail Scottish Nationalist Party leader Nicola Sturgeon meets voters and activists at Cafe Roma in Clarkston, Glasgow AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Protestors participate in an anti-Boris Johnson rally in his constituency Uxbridge, west London AFP via Getty Images General election: On the campaign trail Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage looks out from a window on the Kestrel crabbing boat in Grimsby fish dock PA General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson on a tug boat in the port of Bristol PA General election: On the campaign trail Green Party Co-Leader Sian Berry has a selfie taken with a supporter at the Observatory, London Wetlands Centre PA General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson helps chef Leonardo Mastofilippo to make pizza during a campaign visit to cafe Amisha in South Bermonsey EPA General election: On the campaign trail Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) ladies during a visit to Birkenshaw Sports Barn in Uddingston EPA General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson at the unveiling of the Conservative Party battlebus in Middleton, Greater Manchester PA General election: On the campaign trail Nicola Sturgeon sits alongside Cycling Without Age user Cyril Corcoran (centre), aged 78, in an electric tricycle during a visit to Hawick, in the Scottish Borders PA General election: On the campaign trail Nigel Farage holds a fish during a stop at the Grimsby Seafood Village PA General election: On the campaign trail Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson in the boxing ring at Total Boxer, a specialised boxing gym which offers training to young people as a means of keeping them away from violence, in Crouch End, London PA General election: On the campaign trail Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson reacts as he participates in a school art lesson, making a clay figure at George Spencer Academy, west of Nottingham AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn during a visit to the Heart of Scotstoun Community Centre in Glasgow PA General election: On the campaign trail Scotland's First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon visits the Cafe Gelato in Rutherglen, Glasgow EPA General election: On the campaign trail The Green Party launch in Bristol PA General election: On the campaign trail Farage enjoys some chips at the start of a nationwide tour for the 2019 general election, in Whitehaven AFP/Getty General election: On the campaign trail Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn unveils the Labour battle bus in Liverpool PA General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson reacts as he talks with workers whilst weighing packaged tea bags at the Tetley Tea Factory in Stockton-on-Tees AFP/Getty General election: On the campaign trail Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage on the campaign trail in Whitehaven, where he was confronted by Karl Connor PA General election: On the campaign trail Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson speaks to volunteer Rosie Squires in the Stainforth 4 All charity shop during a visit to Stainforth in South Yorkshire to meet people affected by flooding PA General election: On the campaign trail Nicola Sturgeon poses with candidates during the SNP general election campaign launch in Edinburgh Reuters General election: On the campaign trail Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn with Laura McAlpine, the party's candidate for Harlow PA General election: On the campaign trail Anti-Boris Johnson protesters demonstrate outside the hall where the Conservative Party were launching their campaign in Birmingham EPA General election: On the campaign trail Green Party Co-Leader Sian Berry (left), Deputy Leader and Parliamentary Candidate for Newport West Amelia Womack (right), and Bristol West Candidate Carla Denyer (centre) at the launch of the party's general election manifesto in Bristol PA General election: On the campaign trail The PM tastes whisky during a visit to Diageo's Roseisle Distillery near Elgin, Scotland Reuters General election: On the campaign trail Nigel Farage poses with boxer Dereck Chisora during a visit to a boxing gym in Ilford Reuters General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson visits a science class at Hinchley Wood School near Esher Reuters General election: On the campaign trail First Minister Nicola Sturgeon holds a guitar as she visits Dalkeith Community Hub Getty General election: On the campaign trail A man heckles as Jeremy Corbyn gives a speech at the Senior Citizens Hall in Macclesfield Getty General election: On the campaign trail Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn visits residents affected by flooding in Conisbrough Reuters General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson gestures as he helps quality control staff during a visit to the Tayto Castle crisp factory in County Armagh, Northern Ireland AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail The Lib Dem leader eats a marshmallow during a visit to Free Rangers Nursery in Midsomer Norton, Somerset PA General election: On the campaign trail Nigel Farage visits a butcher's shop in Sutton-in-Ashfield Reuters General election: On the campaign trail SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon visits Blosson Tree children's nursery AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn laughs during a visit to the Scrap Creative Reuse Arts Project, Sunny Bank Mills Getty General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson hold Rosie the rabbit during a visit to a primary school while on the campaign trail in Taunton AFP via Getty General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson playing with children at the Battersea Arts Centre in Lavender Hill PA General election: On the campaign trail Farage addresses supporters at the Washington Central Hotel in Workington PA General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn poses with Labour activists as they canvas in Govan, Glasgow PA General election: On the campaign trail Nicola Sturgeon during a visit to The Shed, a Climate Challenge community project at North Edinburgh Arts PA General election: On the campaign trail Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets six month old Willow Rose Anderson, at the Lych Gate Tavern in Wolverhampton PA General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson holds up a sack of barley during a visit to Crafty Maltsters Scotland Getty General election: On the campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn tries a scone in Bentley, Doncaster PA General election: On the campaign trail Nigel Farage takes a mouthful of homemade cheesecake during a stop at the Grimsby Seafood Village PA General election: On the campaign trail Boris Johnson hauling a consignment of frozen chocolate gateaux, during a visit to Iceland Foods HQ in Deeside PA General election: On the campaign trail Jo Swinson puts on a high visibility jacket during a visit to Sigma Pharmaceuticals, a family run pharmaceutical wholesaler in Watford AFP via Getty

School plays notwithstanding, it is precisely because this seat is so tight that heavyweights like Javid – who declines to speak to media today – are being bussed into the patch.

Priti Patel and Matt Hancock have also come here for the Tories; Ian Lavery for Labour. Jeremy Corbyn himself arrived within days of the election being called.

“There’s never been a Labour government,” he told local activists at the marvellous Crosville Club, “without a Labour MP in Crewe and Nantwich”.

So, no pressure, then.

A five-minute walk from the Crosville, in the centre of shopping square in this Cheshire town of 71,000 people, there stands a pair of large gleaming train wheels on a brick plinth.

It is a piece of street art that celebrates the area’s industrial heritage. This was once one of the planet’s biggest railways hubs. Twenty thousand people were employed at Crew Works, a vast and sprawling site which, at its height, knocked out a newly-built locomotive every single week.

Now, that site employs less than 1,000 people; and this celebratory art is surrounded on all four sides by shuttered-up shops. The only outlets still open that look onto it are a tired WH Smiths and a Cash Converters.

“Says it all, doesn’t it?” shrugs Craig Hancock, 35, an assistant at the latter. “There’s nothing in Crewe anymore. It’s a nowhere town. I love the place but they’re letting it die.”

A quarter of all shops here are boarded up. Dozens were compulsory purchased several years ago ahead of a planned £48m regeneration – Cinema! Gym! Pizza Express! – that has been delayed so often few appear to believe it will ever happen. Promises that a HS2 hub station will also be built here – creating some 37,000 new jobs – are met with similar scepticism.

Shop assistant Craig Hancock and Nikki Williams (The Independent)

Nor is the high street the only sign of struggle.

Education cuts have been so savage that one school made headlines this summer when it asked parents to donate £30 to help cover expenses. Many parents are said to have responded by pointing out they had their own expenses to cover. Smith talks of getting into politics when, as a teacher, she saw a hungry pupil rescuing an apple core from a bin.

The local health service is in similar straits. Unions have said Leighton Hospital’s A&E is at “breaking point”, with figures showing 5 per cent of those attending for treatment in September were made to wait so long that they ended up walking out instead. That’s more than double the corresponding national figure.

Nantwich – the leafier and richer of the two towns; a place dotted with Tudor buildings and independent boutiques – may fare better but poverty still exists here: more than a quarter of all workers across the constituency are paid less than a real living wage.

All of which, received wisdom might suggest, makes this place ripe for an anti-government vote and a repeat Labour victory here.

Except, perhaps, for three factors – all regularly raised on the streets today.

Queensway, in Crewe town centre (The Independent)

The first is (but of course) Brexit. This constituency voted around 60 per cent in favour of leaving the EU, and many people appear to believe the Tories are better placed to deliver that.

The second is Jeremy Corbyn: “IRA sympathiser” is a term used more than once in a town with a large ex-serviceman population.

And the third? There appears to be an overwhelming scepticism about the ability of Labour to deliver on the sheer number of promises made during this campaign.

“Free broadband, four-day week, reduced train travel, the waspi women?” reels off Mick Cooper, as we talk close to those train wheels. “Who’s paying for it all? Who’s paying for these two billion trees he wants planting? They’re offering every man and his dog a free ride but there ain’t no such thing. It all needs to be paid for.”

He doesn’t believe it’s possible to fulfil those pledges? “Not without crippling the country,” the 60-year-old retired factory worker and long-time Labour voter replies. “Two or three weeks ago I liked what they were saying. Now? Too many promises to believe any of them.”

He will be voting Tory, if he votes at all.

It is a theme much repeated today. Offering free broadband particularly appears to be backfiring.

“If that money exists, give it to the NHS,” says Ben Grainger, an 18-year-old serving on a vaping stand in the town’s Market Shopping Centre. “I don’t need the government to pay so I can watch Netflix.”

Labour candidate Laura Smith (Reuters) (REUTERS)

It is perhaps for these reasons that polls are currently suggesting a narrow Tory victory here.

“Same as last time,” smiles Laura Smith. “The polls had us further back then and look what happened.”

We are sat in her Nissan Juke outside her town centre office. We’re not inside ostensibly because it’s too busy with volunteers although it may also have something to do with the fact that earlier, before I’d been introduced, one staffer called across the room about a BBC journalist who had emailed some request or other.

“Ignore him,” another aid called out. “Tory fucker.”

So: that’s the vibe.

Smith herself is unapologetically of the left. She is part of a group calling for the abolition of private schools and confiscation of their property, and at a Momentum event last year she demanded the country’s first general strike since 1926. She can be wonderfully honest about Westminster: a lot of MPs, she says, are in it for themselves.

Of those three key issues that keep coming up on the street, she supports a second Brexit referendum, says Labour’s policies are fully costed and gets on well with Jeremy Corbyn.

Why don’t people in Crewe seem to like him I ask.

Nothing, it turns out, to do with enabling antisemitism, liaising with terrorists or being entirely ambiguous about Britain leaving the EU. It’s all to do with the pesky media.

“I think it is three years of feeding that narrative,” says Smith, who was born and raised in Nantwich. “I think Jeremy is suggesting a change in the way things are going to be run – that redistribution of wealth and power – and of course, there’s a lot of people that don’t want to see that happen.”

The problem is, I suggest, right now, that appears to include a lot of people in Crewe and Nantwich. Would a different leader have helped?

“I’m really not interested in the personality thing,” the 34-year-old bats back. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got a quarter of people living in work poverty, I’ve got people who are waiting 24 hours to be seen in A&E, every single school has had huge cuts so my priority is solely getting a different government.”

Conservative Kieran Mullan on the campaign trail with Sajid Javid (Kieran Mullan)

These are issues – along with Crewe’s boarded up shops – which also concern Kieran Mullan. He’s an A&E doctor and the Conservative candidate.

“These are challenges we’re struggling with all over the country and we are frustrated that there hasn’t been the progress that we want to see,” says the 35-year-old, who is originally from Birmingham but now lives in Crewe. “But ultimately any improvement is going to be driven by a growing economy.”

Quite why there has not been progress on these issues – see also: increased food banks, homelessness and library closures – during nine years of Conservative rule isn’t made entirely clear.

On Brexit, he’s a long-term Leaver, campaigned for exiting the EU during the 2016 referendum and says Boris Johnson’s so-called oven-ready deal is gaining traction on the doorstep. “As a country, I think we can stand on our own two feet,” he says. “We’re more than capable of making our own decisions on issues whether it be immigration, environmental policy or trading standards.”

For those who adamantly want to remain, on the other hand, there is Lib Dem Matthew Theobald.

The 51-year-old parish councillor and director of his own medical device business tells me he is providing the seat’s “only voice for those who believe in being at the heart of Europe and all the benefits that brings”.

But possibly he’s ploughing a difficult furrow. The yellows got just 2.4 per cent of the vote in 2017 – less than a dying Ukip. It’s a lot of ground to make up.

Either way, before I leave the constituency, I happen to pass once again those railway wheels on their brick plinth in Crewe town centre.