Labour leader Ed Miliband said the Liberal Democrats had “betrayed” voters in Hornsey and Wood Green when he came to the area to campaign.

Mr Miliband visited Crouch End with Labour’s candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green, Catherine West, this morning for a campaign rally.

Addressing the assembled crowd outside Hornsey Town Hall, he said the choice on May 7 was between “a recovery for working families across Britain”, or “more of the same from a government that believes in looking after the rich and powerful”.

Mr Miliband added: “We are fighting for a basic idea of fairness in this country. If you want Catherine West as your next MP, don’t leave it up to her, don’t leave it up to me, you can make it happen.”

Speaking to the Tottenham and Wood Green Independent, the Labour leader said: “Lots of people in this constituency feel quite betrayed. They voted in 2010 on a false prospectus, because the Liberal Democrats told them they were going to be the progressive alternative. They ended up horrified with a Liberal Democrat MP in partnership with the Conservative Party.

“We are offering someone who will really be a brilliant MP, who is going to vote to abolish the bedroom tax, raise the minimum wage, ban the exploitation of zero hour contracts, invest in our NHS. 

“I urge people to vote for somebody who will be a brilliant local representative, and who will actually stand up for the views of people in Hornsey and Wood Green, rather than standing with a Tory government.”

The Labour leader said his party was putting forward a “very positive alternative”.

He said: “It’s about building homes, it’s about a fair tax system, reversing the tax cut for the richest in our society, abolishing non-dom status and clamping down on tax avoiders. It’s about cutting business rates for small firms, which will be a big deal in this area. We’ve got a very positive agenda for the future.”

With the deadline looming for voter registration, he urged people to “make sure your voice is heard” in the election.

Mr Miliband added: “We are a country of food banks and soaring bank bonuses. If you want to put an end to that, you need to vote for a Labour government. It’s important for social justice, and for what I think the people of Hornsey and Wood Green believe in, and the kind of country we believe in.

“It’s within our grasp to have Catherine as the MP. I know Catherine very well from the work I’ve done with her when she was leader of Islington Council, and she was a brilliant leader. She pioneered things like the living wage and free school meals. I think she’ll be a star in a Labour government."

The Labour leader also spoke about immigration, and whether putting ‘controls on immigration’ on the party’s pledge card would provoke a backlash in London.

He said: “I’m the son of immigrants, we benefit from being a diverse society, but I think people recognise there need to be controls. There’s nothing progressive about employers who don’t pay the minimum wage, who undercut wages, who put 15 people from overseas in a room and use it to get round fair rules and minimum standards.

“We benefit from being a diverse country, but the way you do it is by having fair rules.”

On the latest proposal on right to buy from the Conservatives, which would extend the scheme to housing association properties, he said: “The problem is, it’s yet another proposal from the Conservatives that is totally unfunded and totally unbelievable. We need a plan to build homes in our country. Where is their plan to build?

“I think it’s been taken apart frankly. You are supposed to raise four and a half billion pounds just to fund this, and they have not shown where a penny of that will come from.”

Catherine West said: “I’m surprised they would make such a commitment when they know how expensive that is. The thing you have to ask is, what is going to be taken away to pay for it?”