Labour chairman Ian Lavery headed to Nelson this week to highlight the ‘cost of living crisis’.

He took the party’s ‘battle bus’ to the town centre on Wednesday to support Pendle candidate County Cllr Azhar Ali

He spent an hour meeting shoppers and local traders.

Mr Lavery, Labour general election co-ordinator, said: “This election is about whose side you are on. Are you on the side of the billionaires, the bad bosses and Boris Johnson’s Tory party who have rigged the economy for themselves and made our regions and working class communities pay for handouts to the wealthiest?

“Or are you on the side of the people struggling to make ends meet this Christmas, the communities whose schools, hospitals and emergency services can’t cope because of Tory cuts, the millions of children in poverty who deserve a better future?”

Cllr Ali said: “We met people and local traders to discuss Labour’s policies.

“We spent an hour just talking to ordinary people and answering their questions."