LABOUR’S multi-billion pound programme to tackle poverty has made people more “selfish”, David Cameron said last night, triggering a furious political row.

The Conservative leader warned that “human kindness, generosity and imagination are being squeezed out “, as he made his most audacious bid to lead “the party of the poor”.

He pledged to bring back people’s sense of “duty and responsibility” – instead of a reliance on the state – arguing: “That’s why it’s now clear to me that the Conservatives, not Labour, are best placed to fight poverty in our country.”

The speech provoked fury from Labour, which accused the Tories of planning a return to Thatcherite policies of the 1980s, which led to a huge increase in poverty.

Yvette Cooper, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said proposals to slash back government and hand responsibility to charities and community groups meant “leaving people to fend for themselves”.

And she added: “The idea things like Sure Start, the NHS or tax credits are killing kindness is a crazy sign of how Thatcherite David Cameron really is.

“It insults the millions of families, neighbours and community groups across the country engaged in daily acts of kindness, generosity and creativity – often supported by public services and public investment.”

The speech saw Mr Cameron building on his party conference speech last month, in which he vowed to tear down “big government” and allow people to make their own choices.

But he went further, in attacking not just Labour’s failure to make serious inroads into cutting poverty, but the consequences of huge state spending on human nature.