Labour leader Ed Miliband visited Chorley today to explain his "One Nation vision" ahead of the forthcoming county council elections.

He spoke to a small crowd before he fielded a host of questions in what he said was an "old-fashioned town meeting" designed to break down the barriers between politics and people.

Stepping up to the makeshift platform of a wooden pallet in front of the town's market, he said politics needed to be done differently.

He said his biggest fear was not the Tories, the Liberal Democrats or Ukip but that "people give up on politics" and say on the doorstep "you are all the same, you all break your promises, we can't trust any of you".

"We have to challenge that," he said. "We have to fight against that and I am going to find any way I can to fight against that including with town meetings and including by not making promises I can't keep.

"If I make promises I can't keep then I'm just like all the others. Another politician coming along, saying what's convenient to be elected.

"I am going to make promises that I can keep and above all I'm going to do this...I'm going to say you that there is a different vision to the way we run this country. There is a different way through this.

"How has Britain come through its toughest times? Always by coming together as a country, not dividing as a country.

"The Government want to say that the problem with Britain is that there a few bad people who are letting down a good Government. I disagree. I think there are good people in Britain who have been let down by an appalling Government. That is the truth about this country.

"What I will present to you and keep fighting for in the next two years is a different vision. A One Nation vision of Britain where we come together as a country. We do what we have done at our historically successful moments, what we did in the Second World War, what we did after the war, we joined together as a country, we worked together and we get out of the mess we are in."