Pictures from the Rotherham by-election campaign - a look at the Left

George Galloway, who won the Bradford West by-election in May, advises party supporters in Rotherham on Respect's best way to campaign.
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

Pat Snark has traded in Rotherham town centre for 22 years and has seen Trade Union and Socialist Coalition campaigners out in all weathers with a trestle table for their petition and photocopied posters stuck to lamp posts. She’s noticed that ‘‘Everybody TUSC has asked to, signs against the cuts – hardly anyone refuses because nobody wants anyone to lose their jobs." Pat's daughter works at the hospital as a recently qualified radiographer.
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

In the centre of Rotherham, a town beset by allegations of child sex grooming and criticism of protection agencies, a poster for victim support has a painful resonance.
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian/guardian.co.uk

Ralph Dyson, a teacher from Rotherham and divisional secretary of the National Union of Teachers is standing for the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition. Dyson is concerned that austerity cuts has had a crippling effect on the community and says: "I’ve never been in a byelection before and I’m not in any party. The Socialist and independent people have come together in TUSC. We’ve got Rotherham Against The Cuts and we work together with them anyway. They asked me to be a candidate because they know what I stand for."
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

Every Saturday, retired teacher George Arthur campaigns in Rotherham town centre against cuts with the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition. He says: "My concern about education is that it stopped being something that taught skills to children and became about testing children on how much they can remember. It’s become all about accumulating knowledge and in my experience that’s the thing that least interests children, particularly working class children. They want to find out what they can do, how can they learn by actually experiencing things."
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

Yvonne Ridley, Respect Candidate for Rotherham. Ridley hit the headlines when as a journalist she was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. The Rotherham campaign is being fiercely fought amid allegations of dirty tricks, false leaflets and problems booking meeting halls.
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

Ralph Dyson, teacher and candidate for the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, out on the stump.
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

Bookies have slashed the odds on Respect Candidate from 33/1 to 4/1 though Labour remains the favorite. On Saturday afternoons, betting shops are among the busiest outlets in Rotherham town centre among the many budget shops and pound stores which reflect the area's demographics. Some 32% of the townspeople live in wards which are among the country's poorest.
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

Rotherham in the rain. The by-election on Thursday 29 November, following Labour MP Denis MacShane's resignation over expenses claims, could whip up a political storm
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

Rashid Davis, a former Labour party supporter joined Respect a few months ago and is now on the National Executive. A school governor and businessman, he has taken three weeks off to drive the adman and campaign from dusk till dawn in Rotherham
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

An 82-year-old pensioner signs the TUSC petition to save jobs and services at Rotherham Hospital. She says: "Everything’s going up. We’ve never had a lot of pension. There's not much money about – well there is but we can't get it."
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian

Christmas is coming - a worrying time in a low-income town such as Rotherham. And who will Santa deliver to Parliament, come Thursday 29 November?
Photograph: Ann Czernik for the Guardian