My one vision, by soapbox Miliband

He spoke to a small crowd in Chorley, Lancashire, 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.”

The visit came as Labour announced it would set up an independent commission to examine how health and social care can be integrated.

Mr Miliband has warned of a multi-billion pound black hole in NHS funding to meet the care needs of an ageing population unless there is reform.

Under the Labour plans more care will be provided directly in people’s homes, there will be a greater focus on prevention and better co-ordination between different branches of the system.

Speaking to the crowd of about 60 people in Chorley, he said: “If we can bring together the way the health service works with the way the social care works we can make a huge change in the care we give to elderly people.

“How many people here know of elderly people who end up in hospital when they don’t really need to be in hospital? They are only in hospital because they have nowhere else to go.

“Let’s have health and social care working together so it keeps elderly people out of hospital and saves the health service money.”

The Opposition leader worked up a thirst as he answered questions on subjects as diverse as immigration, potholes in roads, the so-called bedroom tax, youth unemployment and school academies.

He promised similar town meetings in the future as he said he thought most people saw the House of Commons exchanges between him and the Prime Minister as “pretty boring”.

“People are fed up with the old way of doing politics,” he told reporters.

“No doubt it will go wrong from time to time but I think it is a better way of doing politics. You have got to break down the barriers between politics and people.”