With just one week to go until the General Election, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls visited North Finchley to win support from traders.

The Labour politician visited businesses along High Road with Finchley and Golders Green candidate Sarah Sackman today.

Polls in the seat have narrowed in recent weeks, with David Cameron visiting on Monday to shore up support for Conservative candidate Mike Freer, who won in 2010.

The pair visited Garland Electronics, where owner Jimmy Apostolou gave Mr Balls advice on a new oven, before popping in to Cafe Buzz for a coffee.

Mr Balls spoke about the party’s plans to cut business rates, which he said had “gone down really well” with traders on the high street.

Discussing whether the mansion tax would affect Labour’s chances in Finchley and Golders Green, he said people wanted action on the NHS, and that it would pay for more doctors and nurses.

He said: “We have to say where that money is going to come from. The vast majority of people living in this constituency will be totally unaffected by the mansion tax and will gain from the improvements in the health service.

“But for the smaller number of properties above £2m, we are going to do it in a careful, sensible, fair way. Every low income person will be protected and nobody is going to be forced to leave their home because they can’t pay. We’ve always been clear this will help us to win this seat.”

Ms Sackman added: “When I go campaigning one of the most important issues that people bring up on the doorstep is the state of our NHS. People understand and want to see a plan, and that’s what they’re hearing from Labour.”

Asked if the ‘no money left’ letter left by Liam Byrne in the Treasury was a mistake, Mr Balls said: “There was a Tory chancellor who left office in 1964 from the Treasury, and he wrote a letter like that and Liam was thinking he was going to do the same thing for his successor.

"It was meant to be silly and it’s turned out to be very silly.”

Speaking about cuts to local government, he said: “It’s been really unfair that the biggest cuts have fallen, even bigger than defence and police, on local councils. Local services in Barnet cannot survive three more years of cuts like this."

However, he added that there would have to be “sensible cuts”.

The Shadow Chancellor said: “The pressure on local services is going to continue until we get the deficit down, but what we’re talking about under the Tories is 20 per cent cut plus. Another huge cut, I just don’t think that local services can survive it.”