You're wrong: Ed Miliband tells Russell Brand he is wrong not to vote and says that people and politics CAN bring change

Sitting in the comedian's plush kitchen in trendy east London, the Labour leader said: "How does progress come? Progress comes from people demanding change, politics responding, not all the way, and people pushing for that change to carry on.

"But without the politics, without Government, the change doesn't happen. That's what happens in democratic society."

Brand, who has 10 million Twitter followers, had controversially urged people not to vote last year in an interview with Jeremy Paxman.

The highly-anticipated interview was posted on Brand's YouTube channel The Trews which has one million subscribers. Before it had even been broadcast, David Cameron had labelled it a 'joke' and the leader of the Opposition was heavily criticised in national newspapers.

But far from cosy up to the self-style revolutionary, Mr Miliband took Mr Brand head on. Even if he did wander into a 'mockney' accent at times.

He said: "There's two issues here, there's does politics make change happen? And what scale of change are we talking about?

"The problem I've had with some of the things that you've said is that the first, that no change, it's just quite wrong. This is wrong. Change has happened and it will happen."

Mr Miliband replied: "I think this is the central thing that we've got to confront in the country, is who is the country run for. Is it just run for the richest and most powerful or is it run for working people?"

The Labour leader also raised the issue of zero hours contracts at which point Brand joked his crew were on them.

Mr Miliband replied: "I'm sure they are not. Otherwise I would get very angry with you.

"It's about saying is a text message at 6am in the morning to tell you whether you have got work or not, is that a good way to run a country?"

And after being quizzed about media ownership, Mr Miliband said Sun, The Times, and Sky owner Rupert Murdoch is not as powerful as he used to be.

He said: "The thing I'd say to you about this is these people are less powerful than they used to be."

Before adding: "I'm not diminishing Rupert Murdoch. He's much less powerful than he used to be. The British people have a lot more sense than some of his papers give them credit for."

Brand replied: "There's no doubt about that but it's still a concern."

At the end of the chat, Brand said Mr Miliband had demonstrated he understands the way the country feels by giving him an interview.

He said: "I think we learnt a lot about Labour, we learnt a lot about Ed Miliband.

"It's not a perfect interview but personally I found it a very interesting experience.

"I think it says a lot about Ed Miliband, he understands the way the media works right now, the way the country feels at the moment, the way that people feel, that he was prepared to come round here and talk to us."