THE people of Dunfermline were assailed by two great storms yesterday. Hurricane Cameron hit the town centre at about lunchtime. Shoppers cowered on doorsteps as it swept down the High Street, a media tornado of awesome proportions, enveloping the Conservative leader in a swirling mass of TV cameras, thrusting lenses and shouted questions.

No sooner had the Cameron storm subsided than it was followed by another, if anything more devastating in its impact: Cyclone Kennedy, or the return of the fallen leader. Hemmed in by the media, at times simply immobilised by their attentions, Charles Kennedy, so recently ousted from his job as leader of the Liberal Democrats, was accorded the kind of reception reserved for Hollywood stars. If his ruddy complexion and beaming smile was anything to go by, he loved it.

This, it should be remembered, was just a by-election, and not one in which either of the above two parties should realistically have any prospect of winning. Labour took Dunfermline & West Fife last time by more than 11,000 votes. The constituency is in Gordon Brown’s own backyard; he has been prominent in the campaign; by rights it should be rock-solid. But this is no ordinary by-election, and yesterday’s remarkable scenes showed that politics in Britain have, at the very least, lost the element of predictability.

Mr Cameron was there to support the Tory candidate, Carrie Ruxton, a local businesswoman, but it was something about his first confrontation with the Scottish voter that excited attention. Notting Hill meets West Fife was always going to be an event.

From the moment he stepped out of his car, he was swamped. Holding on to the arm of his candidate, he attempted to pilot her through the jabbing lenses and hovering microphones. “Hello, good to see you, all well?” he threw out at the occasional passer-by. Every now and then he spotted an actual voter and, diving through with outstretched hand, he gave them the full Cameron treatment — the broad grin, the big hello, and the spiel: “This is Carrie, she’s a real fighter. Vote for her and we’ll see things improve. It’s time for a change.”

Dunfermline High Street is not, at the best of times, an invigorating place. Down-at-heel, with too many empty premises, it is in need of a boost. Mr Cameron, briefly, gave it just that. Shoppers who had been hanging back began to come forward to shake him by the hand or ask for autographs. People returned his handshakes with a smile and a word of encouragement. “I’m so excited to meet him,” said a young girl. “Why?” asked a reporter. “I don’t know, I just am.”

Not everyone was impressed. John Gilmour, a lighting retailer, who managed to have a two-minute conversation with him about the decline in the town centre, said: “Impressed? We’ll see what Mr Cameron actually does, and then we’ll see whether we’re impressed.”

Mr Cameron was delighted by the reception. “Gosh, quite a ruck out there,” he said afterwards. “I felt like a scrum forward. But it was very encouraging. People were very friendly. The idea is to get people in Scotland to look at the Tories again, to get us back into contention, and I think we’re beginning to do that.”

Meanwhile, down at the other end of the street, Gordon Brown, whose campaign on behalf of Catherine Stihler, the Labour candidate, has, by most accounts, been lacklustre, was stopping for lunch.

“Ye’ll get a pint in here, Gordon,” said the owner of the Tappie Toories pub next door, but Mr Brown, sensing a media mishap, wisely gave it a miss. His message was less snappy than Mr Cameron’s, but certainly more Brownite: “Jobs, prosperity, stability,” was the mantra of the day.

Just as Mr Brown was settling into his bacon sandwich, the second scrum of the day was careering off down the street. Mr Kennedy’s progress was more haphazard than Mr Cameron’s, largely as a result of the massed ranks of Lib Dem supporters, who had been instructed to close in around their former leader and to cheer his every word. But it was more lighthearted, punctuated by gales of laughter as Mr Kennedy’s quick repartee lit up the crowd. “We love you, Charlie! ” shouted an enthusiastic woman supporter. “Careful, dear, we don’t want a tabloid scandal,” replied Mr Kennedy.

“What do you think of the leadership rows?” asked a TV reporter. “Well, it doesn’t seem to have harmed our profile here,” he shot back, plunging towards a distant shopper as the cry of “Voter alert!” went up from an enthusiastic aide. Introducing the Lib Dem candidate, Willie Rennie, who, most people agree, is the best of the candidates, he said: “We are the challengers here, and we have an excellent chance.”

Mr Kennedy, relaxed, good-humoured, and plainly physically better than he has been for some time, seemed delighted to be back in the fray. “He is in great form,” his colleague Lord Razzall said. Asked whether he was still “on the wagon”, Mr Kennedy replied: “I feel as healthy and as fit as I was when I handed over the leadership.” Did he think that his rival, Sir Menzies Campbell, had stabbed him in the back? “I don’t have a clue what you ’re talking about,” he snapped.

As for the crowd’s reaction to him, it seemed to be a combination of sympathy for a man unfairly treated, and enthusiasm for a Liberal Democrat whose behaviour now looks rather more acceptable than those of most of his rivals.

Whether the Liberal Democrats can close the gap on Labour; whether the SNP can move up from third place; and whether the Tories really can make inroads, remains to be seen. Yesterday, however, was a day for two political stars to revel in the limelight, and for Dunfermline to hog the headlines. It doesn’t happen very often.

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