Cameron attacks 'phoney' Brown

David Cameron has stepped up his attack on Gordon Brown's personality, accusing the prime minister of being "deeply phoney".

The Conservative leader said Brown was being hypocritical in posing with Baroness Thatcher and comparing himself to her as a "conviction politician".

Asked why he had been personal in his criticisms, Cameron said it had been because Brown had sought to stress his personality as a strength.

"I respect him as a politician, of course. [But] I think there are things he has done recently that have been deeply phoney," he told Sky News' Sunday Live.

"If you, all your life, campaign against everything Margaret Thatcher has done, you look a bit silly when you pose with her.

"If you keep telling people how decisive you are and strong and then you cancel an election, I think you do look a bit of a phoney.

"I'm sorry, I just say it as I see it and that's how I saw it."

Amid increasingly hostile debates in Parliament between the two, Cameron acknowledged that "exchanges in the House of Commons, sometimes they can be very robust, that is the way our system works".

However he said he would continue to work with the government on issues on which they agreed, such as Trident.