There is not much love lost on the Western Isles, where elections rarely come and go without acrimony.
Little else would be expected in a constituency that is the only traditional SNP-Labour marginal in northern Scotland.
Known in Westminster by its Gaelic name, Na h-Eileanan Siar, the seat that covers the Outer Hebrides is the smallest by population of any in Britain.
The constituency has a special place in the history of both Labour and the SNP.
In 1935, it became Labour’s first non-urban Scottish seat when it returned Malcolm K Macmillan, who held it for 35 years.
It also was the first general election seat won by the SNP, in 1970, when Donald Stewart seized it and went on to serve as the isles MP until 1987.
Labour’s Calum MacDonald reasserted the party’s dominance that year, and through the 1990s, before it was won back by the current SNP incumbent Angus MacNeil in 2005.
Similarly, the SNP has held the equivalent Holyrood seat at the last three elections, with Labour’s Alistair Morrision having been the MSP in the first two Scottish Parliaments.
It is the same Mr Morrision, a former journalist, who has been given the task of taking on Mr MacNeil on May 7.
So is the pendulum ready to swing back to Labour?
The Western Isles was one of only half a dozen SNP-held seats in the last Westminster parliament and, with support for the party at a historic high across the nation, there is little evidence that it is poised to lose any of the those six constituencies.
Equally, with backing for Labour across Scotland at its lowest level for a century, even the most optimistic of activists is not talking up the party’s chances of making gains.
But this is the Western Isles, and trends in the rest of the country do not always find their way across the Minch.
The islanders also surprised some at last year’s independence referendum by voting No by 53% to 47%, which could be significant if pro-UK supporters vote tactically against the SNP.
The election contest on the islands has already become engulfed in a controversy centred around local authority chief executive Malcolm Burr.
He faced calls to step down temporarily as the local returning officer after it emerged that he had attended a transport meeting with Mr MacNeil of the SNP, and Scottish Government ministers.
Transport is regularly an area of dispute, for understandable reasons given the remoteness of the constituency.
Mr Morrison, the Labour candidate, recently triggered a row by claiming the running of life-line ferry services to the islands was “shambolic”, and that the Scottish Government was paving the way for privatisation of Caledonian MacBrayne.
There have also been attacks over the failure to bring in a service from Lochboisdale in South Uist to Mallaig.
Mr MacNeil, meanwhile, has been highlighting electricity prices, mobile and internet coverage, the UK Government’s removal of an emergency tug from the west coast, and the future of the Hebrides missile range.
The other five seats in the Highlands and islands were all held by the Liberal Democrats in the last parliament, but the party has not been a force on the Western Isles since before World War II.
The party’s candidate, Ruaraidh Ferguson, moved to Lewis from the borders in 1989 and stood unsuccessfully for the Western Isles seat at Holyrood in 2007.
The Conservative candidate is Mark Brown and, although his registered address is in Edinburgh, the businessman says he has been visiting the islands for more than two decades and that only his party has a long-term economic plan.
Scottish Christian Party candidate John Cormack is another who lives away from the islands, this time in Glasgow, but the Caithness-raised businessman will win backing from some in the strong Christian community on the Outer Hebrides.
Conservatives
Mark Brown
Age: 41
Profession: Financier
Liberal Democrats
Ruaraidh Ferguson
Age: 53
Profession: Education and Energy Efficiency Officer
Scottish National Party
Angus MacNeil
Age: 44
Profession: Engineer, teacher, journalist
Labour
Alasdair Morrison
Age:46
Profession: Journalist
Scottish Christian Party
John Cormack
Age: 37
Profession: Businessmen and Christian school director
2010 result
Angus MacNeil, Scottish National Party, 6,723
Donald John MacSween Labour 4,838
Murdo Murray Independent 1,412
Jean Davis Liberal Democrat 1,097
Sheena Norquay Conservative 647