SHADOW chancellor Ed Balls urged voters to strip the Tories of council control when he visited Swindon to back Labour’s local election campaign yesterday.

Mr Balls went canvassing in Eastcott before meeting up with about 30 Labour councillors, candidates and supporters in the town centre.

The shadow cabinet member said that although Swindon’s Labour group might not achieve its stated aim of taking majority control on Thursday, he hoped voters would help the party secure extra seats.

“It’s going to be difficult for us to take control in one go but the all-out elections is a very important opportunity for us to make gains,” he said.

“What Labour can do here in Swindon is make a difference for families and commercial business and that’s what we want to do.”

Mr Balls also said people in Swindon were telling him the local Conservative council was in ‘chaos’, they hadn’t ‘got a grip’, and were doing things ‘unfairly’.

He also hit out at the Lib Dems, the Conservative’s national coalition partners, who are expected to be the main rivals for Labour in Eastcott, where Mr Balls went canvassing.

He said: “There are Lib Dem councillors in this town who are trying to persuade people a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote against spending cuts, even though the Lib Dems are the ones keeping the Tories in place in Westminster.”

Both Mr Balls and former foreign secretary Jack Straw have both visited Swindon in the last week, but the shadow chancellor insisted people would vote Labour based on local, rather than national issues.

He said: “There’s no doubt the national picture is making a big difference because people who voted in the general election, either Tory or Lib Dem, weren’t voting thinking the economy would be back in recession, there wouldn’t be a jobs programme for young people, that the Government would put up tax for pensioners and cut taxes for millionaires.

“But I think people will come out on Thursday for making things Labour in Swindon and if we can have more Labour councillors and even take control in the end.”

Coun Rod Bluh, Swindon Council’s leader, said: “I would like remind Ed Balls that as a Conservative administration we inherited one of the 12 worst-run councils in the country after a Labour administration and we have seen radical transformation in the words of the Audit Commission, and we now have one of the better-run councils in the country which is creating value for money for Swindon.”