APATHY is winning the battle for Stoke on Trent Central.

On a dull, damp day in Hanley in the heart of the constituency, local shoppers appear to be suffering from a bad case of a by-election chill.

“I couldn’t care less who wins, it'll make no difference; they’re all a bunch of tossers,” says Bill, a retired electrician. “I can’t stand the Tories, Labour are hopeless under Corbyn and Ukip? No comment.”

It’s a common theme; that the choice before the good folk of Stoke is unappealing and that, come next Thursday, many will simply not bother to turn out.

Of late, it has been a familiar story. Stoke on Trent Central had the lowest turnout of any constituency at the 2015 General Election; just 49.9 per cent.

Back in 1950 when the seat was created, 83 per cent of locals went to the polling booths. In the Labour landslide of 1997 it was down to 62.8 per cent. But in recent years, locals appear to have lost faith in the political class. Perhaps in recognition of this, officials, drawing up the boundary review, have decided to kill off the constituency; Stoke will go down from three seats to just two.

At the General Election, Labour’s Tristram Hunt won a majority of 5,179 with Ukip pipping the Tories for second place by just 33 votes. But Labour’s dominance, it has always held the seat, has been on the wane for years; in 1997, its majority was almost 20,000.

For those hardy few engaged in the by-election, Brexit, the NHS and jobs are the key topics. Almost 70 per cent of people in Stoke voted to leave the EU, making it Britain’s “Brexit capital”. It raises the question: if Ukip can’t win here in such a working class area, where can they?

But there is more going on. As the by-election battle enters its crucial stage – the final week – it has become dominated by Ukip’s Hillsborough controversy and Labour’s very own Twitterstorm.

Paul Nuttall, the Liverpudlian leader of Ukip, has been in full damage limitation mode since having to apologise for misleading claims that he lost close friends in the 1989 tragedy in which 96 people died. By sheer coincidence his website was closed for “scheduled maintenance” and the candidate pulled out of a campaign hustings with his rivals.

On the day The Herald arrived in Stoke, Mr Nuttall was nowhere to be seen. He was back in Liverpool, apparently, to “calm down” relatives unnerved by the ongoing Hillsborough row.

It seems there are fears within Ukip that the political stramash has been getting too much media attention and by removing himself physically from the fray for a day or two, Mr Nuttall hopes this might help lower the temperature on the ground.

The Ukip office, emblazoned with pictures of their candidate, makes its presence felt in the heart of the shopping precinct. There is a sign, warning “CCTV in operation”. One party worker explains how every day passers-by hurl abuse through the open door. One morning, EU flags were drapped on the shop front.

One placard-carrying ‘kipper activist on patrol outside is Annie-Therese Murray, all the way from Dornoch near Inverness. The 79-year-old retired reflexologist has faithfully campaigned for the party in all recent by-elections south of the border. “It’s going very well. Expectations are rising. More and more people are coming over to us; you can tell by their body language.” But this, of course, suggests voters are not actually saying they are going to switch to Ukip.

In the absence of Mr Nuttall, the gathered media has to settle to try and quiz Douglas Carswell, Ukip’s only MP, who is in town, canvassing; but the party unhelpfully declines to tell reporters where.

When the Essex MP finally arrives back at base he gives a one-sentence statement to the media, refuses to answer any questions and is quickly ushered inside the Ukip shop with an aide closing the door.

While interviews are promised to the waiting reporters outside, Mr Carswell finally emerges 20 minutes later but walks straight past them, again refusing to say a word. He is followed up one street and then up another as journalists fire off questions about the Hillsborough row but the Ukip MP stares straight ahead determined not to say a word.

At the top of the hill, he turns round to say: “Cheerio, thanks for your time,” and disappears into a building in an attempt to “gee up” supporters. But the sight of an MP effectively running away from the Press is not an edifying one and perhaps says more than anything about the party’s hopes for Stoke.

The Labour rival, meantime, is at the Royal Stoke University Hospital with none other than Tom Watson, the affable deputy party leader, to talk to staff and patients.

Gareth Snell, a local trade union official, was forced onto the defensive after some historic tweets emerged, which were damned as misogynistic. Among others, he branded the female panellists on ITV’s Loose Women programme “squabbling sour-faced ladies”, described Janet Street-Porter as a “polished turd” and said a “speccy blonde girl” on BBC’s The Apprentice should “p*** off”.

Appearing contrite, the would-be Labour MP said: “I said some things a while ago which were silly and stupid and I have apologised for them and will continue to apologise for them. If I could go back and have a word with my 23-year-old self, I would be saying some harsh words to him.”

It is a carefully-crafted response with Mr Watson, an old by-election campaigner, standing nearby, seemingly making sure the Labour candidate has got the wording right.

Asked if the Snell Twitter-storm was hitting their chances of success, the Midlands MP replies: “I don’t think so. I don’t think this and the Hillsborough row are equivalent. Admitting you had misled people by saying you had lost someone at a football game...is incomprehensible.”

He adds: “Gareth has apologised for the tweets. People are telling me it’s not playing out on the doorstep.”

Mr Snell insists he does not want to politicise the tragedy of Hillsborough and wants to stay positive but makes clear Mr Nuttall has “questions to answer”.

Asked if Jeremy Corbyn, who has made a fleeting visit to the constituency, was an asset or liability to his campaign, the Labour candidate at first does not answer the question but then is given a second chance.

“Jeremy is the leader and obviously he is an asset to the Labour Party when it comes to motivating people, who want to come and vote for us. We’re focusing very much on what I can offer the people of Stoke on Trent Central as their MP.”

Across the city near the ceramics factories that have made the area famous as the Potteries, Jack Brereton, the fresh-faced Conservative candidate, is trying but failing to talk to voters.

The politician, sporting his blue rosette, is just 25 years old. He became a local councillor at 19 when most of his male contemporaries were more interested in music, football and their next date. The Tory hopeful was still at university when he became the city’s youngest councillor, studying, of course, politics.

I find him canvassing on a former brownfield site, full of new homes; 100 to be precise. It is a subject that fills Mr Brereton with pride as he boasts how the council, no longer run by Labour but by a combination of Conservatives and Independents, is boosting the number of new homes for local people by some 1,200.

He trots out clear well-rehearsed campaign lines, most notably about how Labour, having been in charge of the city for so long, has let local people down badly and it is time for the Tories to make a difference; to deliver on Brexit.

While a number of Cabinet ministers have ventured to Stoke to offer “fantastic support”, conspicuously they do not include Theresa May, who made a short trip to the other by-election in Copeland; clearly showing where Tory high command believes the party’s best chance lies of creating a by-election sensation.

Mr Brereton, who works as a parliamentary aide to Staffordshire MP and Culture Secretary Karen Bradley, tries to put a positive spin on the lack of the prime ministerial presence. He reveals how last week he was in Downing Street for tea and a 10-minute audience with Mrs May. Yet it does not bode well when the party leader calls the candidate down to London instead of bothering to travel up the M6 herself to campaign on the stump.

“We’re getting a lot of support,” insists the Tory candidate earnestly. “Ukip talk a lot about Brexit but we’re the only ones under Theresa May who can deliver. Labour have taken Stoke for granted for too long. People, who have traditionally voted Labour, tell me they’re turning away from them and are going to vote Conservative. I’m now really hopeful I can win.”

As Labour and Ukip take by-election bites out of each other, an aide quietly confides that the Conservative strategy is to rise above the fray, keep positive and hope that the two leading contenders cancel each other out with Tory Jack triumphantly coming through the middle.

After walking up one road and down another on the new estate, the Conservative hopeful finally decides to knock on a door or two to chat to actual voters.

Yet not unsurprisingly, the curtains twitch but no one answers and Mr Brereton with his small band of helpers makes his way to a waiting car to set off for another part of town in attempt to break the by-election apathy. Good luck.