Out and about with Labour's Ed Balls

We are on a whistle stop tour of homes where the Shadow Chancellor is looking to connect with voters in a crucial constituency.

Cannock Chase was the site of Labour's heaviest loss in 2010. It saw the biggest swing to the Tories.

Now Labour wants this former mining community back and is going in hard on the cost of living.

Well, about as hard as knocking on the doors of people who turn out to already be Labour supporters can be.

First up is Anglesey Street in Hednesford and 50-year-old supermarket worker Janet Mullens. The mother of two tells the shadow chancellor and prospective parliamentary candidate Janos Toth that she's always voted Labour.

Mr Balls sells the policy nonetheless: "People are still being squeezed on living standards," he says. He explains to Mrs Mullens that her grandchildren would get more free childcare under Labour and the conversation turns to football.

"Wolves should be in the top league," he says. "West Bromwich are so lucky."

With Adrian Chiles' job as a football pundit safe, we move on to Essex Drive, where 77-year-old Ann Hopwood greets the Shadow Chancellor with a kiss on the cheek, after he asks if he can walk across the lawn.

"A lot of things have gone up terribly," she says. "The electricity and the gas bills in particular."

But Mr Balls is quick to point out the free TV licences for the over-75s that Gordon Brown introduced.

Talking of the former 'iron chancellor', as we walk down Essex Drive to another house (there's no-one in), a group of boys on their bikes look over to see what the nine or so people in the door-knocking group are doing.

"It's Gordon Brown," says one to his mates before they ride off.

Mr Balls, who has not heard the mistaken identity, carries on with his whistle-stop tour of the estate.

There's a chat with a window cleaner, Graham Hall, in Radnor Rise and a lady who did not want to give her name before Mr Balls asks his small army to wave to the householder.

He asks: "How many times have the Conservatives brought that many people around to wave?"

But it's time to go and the Shadow Chancellor is whisked back into a Range Rover so we can rendezvous at the Station Cafe by Hednesford rail station.

This cafe, by the way, is something of a favourite haunt for politicians coming up from London. The transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin stopped in in July last year when he came to have a look at railway bridges.

It is mugs of tea all round and a bit of tomfoolery in the kitchen as the Shadow Chancellor puts a tea towel over his shoulder and chats to owner Deborah Smith.

But there are serious matters to discuss. The economy is growing again. Output is back to what it was before the financial crisis. For all his warnings that Tory austerity would backfire, the Conservatives delight in telling him he was wrong.

"What we're hearing from small businesses is every time George Osborne says the economy is fixed, people say who is it fixed for? Because it's not working for us.

"Our living standards are going down, wages aren't keeping pace with prices.

"Business rates are high. We're saying don't cut the main corporation tax for big businesses, use the money to freeze business rates for small businesses."

He is also still concerned by banks 'not supporting small businesses' and wants a British investment bank.

"Until living standards are rising for working people, the economy is not fixed," he says.

Labour policy such as the much trailed energy price freeze and the mansion tax on houses worth more than £2 million roll of his tongue, but he also wants to see more investment in manufacturing and exports.

"If you look at business investment across Europe since 2010, only Greece, Cyprus and Ireland have had worse than us," he says.

Cannock Chase represented a big defeat for Labour. Has the party worked out where it went wrong?

Mr Balls says: "I think that the fact that you had the massive, global financial crisis which happened on our watch, meant people saw their living standards hit. Of course that had an impact on us in 2010 but I don't think we would be being straight with people if we only said it was the financial crisis. It was also after 13 years in government we had made some mistakes. We didn't face up to the concerns people had. People felt immigration had been too fast after 2004. There hadn't been enough control or enforcement of working standards and foreign labour could undercut local wages. People know we're on the side of working people but they need to know we admit where we've got things wrong and we've learned lessons."

He says there is 'unfinished business' in rebuilding people's trust.

Last week Nigel Farage told the Express & Star he'd be willing for UKIP to back a minority Labour government, as long as the party gives him a referendum on Europe.

Mr Balls is adamant it will not happen: "What would they want to put into this pact? UKIP say they want to charge people to go to the doctor, privatise health, take away people's sickness and other working rights, they want to cut taxes for people earning over £150,000 by abolishing the higher rate of income tax.

"I don't think we're going to want to sign up to any of those policies.

"They're not Labour policies. I don't think a UKIP pact is ever going to work for working people.

"What they offer is not policies that will help people around here.

"When it comes to Europe, people don't think the status quo is working. They want change and reform. But most people know that walking away from the biggest single market on our doorstep would be cutting off your nose to spite your face."

"We guarantee we will have an in-out referendum if there's any proposal to transfer power to Brussels. We're not going to have it come what may."

Key to the campaign in Staffordshire next year will be what the parties are prepared to do about Stafford Hospital, facing a controversial downgrade, with the minor injuries unit at Cannock Hospital threatened with reduced hours. Whatever the solution, it is going to cost money.

"Everybody in Cannock knows the NHS is hugely important and has to stay free," says Mr Balls. "We will do what it takes to protect and secure the NHS in the future.

"People in Stafford need a decent hospital they can rely on. That's what we will deliver."

He listens as Cannock Chase Council leader George Adamson fills him in on the Stafford Hospital downgrade and the 35-mile round trip to University Hospital North Staffordshire some patients would face.

"What you need is regional specialisation in specialist medicine," Mr Balls says. "But routine stuff you want as close as possible to where people are living. The idea of centralising everything on one site, I thought that was out of date."

The main parties are agreed that they want high speed rail, despite fierce objections from areas like Staffordshire.

Mr Balls, however, has previously said there is no 'blank cheque' for HS2 after cost projections spiralled to £50 billion.

He will not say how much is too much, despite repeated questions, but suggests he wouldn't be happy to see it go up by another £2 billion and actually wants the cost to come down.

But the legal process still has 'complexities'.

His answer is ironic from someone who wants to look after the public's money: "I don't want to put figures on it."