Labour party leader Ed Miliband said Barnet Council is at the “pretty extreme end of the Conservative party” during a visit to Mill Hill.

More than 200 people attended the question and answer session, in Hartley Hall, Mill Hill, this morning, at which the Labour leader covered topics, including the NHS, anti-Semitism and the economy.

The Labour leader stressed his priority was to sort the housing crisis out, and said that Barnet Council is “at the extreme end of the Conservative Party”, in response to a question about proposed closures of the borough's libraries.

One woman said she was worried about voting for Andrew Dismore, Labour's parliamentary candidate for Hendon, because Ed Miliband’s “general support for Israel just isn’t there.”

Another audience member, a student at King’s College London, explained that there was rising anti-Semitism and anti-Israel rhetoric across university campuses, and asked what a Labour government would do.

Mr Miliband pledged his support for Israel, and said: “The thing we have to get across is that scepticism about Israel’s government’s actions is in a totally different category to questioning whether Israel should not be there, or anti-Semitism. I am determined to get that message across to people.”

Speaking about the vote on Palestine last year, Mr Miliband said he was pleased with the position Labour took on it as part of the peace process.

He was also asked whether the announcement by British Gas that it is to cut energy prices by five per cent showed that his proposed energy price freeze would not work.

Mr Miliband said that the cut was “too little and too late.”

He also pledged that he would give councils more of a role in enforcing the minimum wage was paid by employers, and, on the issue of green belt land, said: “There’s lots of brown field land we could use, it’s just developers are sitting on it. I don’t buy the argument we cannot protect the green belt and support housebuilding."