Cameron defends 'child of Thatcher' remark

David Cameron has defended William Hague's description of Tory frontbenchers as "the children of Thatcher".

The Foreign Secretary's description of himself, the Prime Minister and Chancellor George Osborne was included in leaked documents made public by the WikiLeaks website.

Labour leader Ed Miliband brought the remark up at Prime Minister's Questions, as he questioned the coalition's programme of austerity measures.

Mr Miliband said: "It's no wonder that today we learn that the Foreign Secretary describes this gang as the children of Thatcher. It sounds just like the 1980s: out of touch with people up and down the country.

"Why don't you admit that you are complacent about the recovery, you are complacent about the people who will lose their jobs and it is they who will pay the price?"

Mr Cameron dismissed the remarks, claiming Mr Miliband was "not waving but drowning", and added: "My mother is still with us so she will be able to testify that what you have claimed is not literally true. But let me say this: I would rather be a child of Thatcher than a son of Brown."

The Prime Minister's remark was greeted with rapturous cheers on Tory benches, with Commons Speaker John Bercow forced to call for order.

Mr Miliband had earlier asked Mr Cameron: "Why don't you just answer the question: is this the most sluggish recovery out of recession in Britain for the last 40 years, yes or no?"

Mr Cameron told him: "This is one of the fastest recoveries in Europe and the point is, if we'd followed your advice, we wouldn't be discussing recovery, we would be discussing meltdown.

"You can have a blank sheet of paper about the future, you can't have a blank sheet of paper about the past. We know we were left a record budget deficit, we remember no more boom and bust, we remember all of the things you were responsible for."

Following reports of unrest within Labour over Mr Miliband's leadership the Prime Minister said: "You have been doing the job for the last three months and people are beginning to ask 'when are you going to start?'."