8:12AM, Thu Oct 4, 2012

Residents Of Gateshead’s ‘Little Moscow’ Chopwell Village On Ed Miliband

By India Adams Location: Chopwell, Gateshead

Video: What do the residents of Chopwell think of Ed Miliband?

Labour leader Ed Miliband’s keynote speech at the annual party conference in Manchester has been hailed as a turning point for both the party and Mr Miliband.

North East MPs and union leaders applauded his ‘one nation’ vision, but what do voters think of his performance?

Chopwell was nicknamed "Little Moscow" because of the strong support in the former coal mining village for the Communist Party

In 1926, during the General Strike, the Union Flag was taken down from the council offices and replaced with the Soviet flag.

And their left-wing legacy is still visible with street names such as Marx Terrace and Lenin Terrace.

Sky Tyne and Wear went along to see what residents there thought of Ed Miliband and his policies.

They spoke as Miliband revealed his "five easy steps" to winning the next General Election as he claimed the party had the "wind in its sails".

He said his new project would outlive him as leader and probably the party's next chief as well, as he warned activists to remain sober in its efforts to regain power in 2015.

He told Young Labour activists at the Labour party conference in Manchester that he was traumatised in 1992 when then leader Neil Kinnock lost out to Tory Prime Minister John Major in the General Election.

He said the party had to change the country as Margaret Thatcher had done back in the 1980s as he urged young delegates to remain "disciplined and united" while taking "the fight to the Tories".

He said: "The really important thing to say is that the reason we have put ourselves in the place that we have is because we have remained united as a party.

"History is an ugly thing when it comes to Labour in opposition. We are bucking the trend."