Cameron blames Brown 'for anarchy in the UK'

The Tory leader, who has been away for two weeks, signalled that he would use the next election to focus relentlessly on the Prime Minister's 10 years in power.

Declaring that there was now "anarchy in the UK" in some parts of the country, Mr Cameron suggested that Mr Brown was responsible for undermining family life by failing as Chancellor to recognise marriage in the tax system.

Mr Cameron was launching a campaign to save district hospitals across London and the rest of the country as part of a drive to shift his party back onto the centre ground after a week of tax cuts policy.

After his worst period as leader, he came back from his summer break vowing to give Mr Brown a "bareknuckle" fight over the NHS and plans to create " polyclinics" in the capital.

Mr Cameron sought to calm jittery Tory nerves in the run-up to the party conference season with a vitriolic attack on the Prime Minister. He said Labour's failure to recognise marriage in the tax system had helped fuel social breakdown.

He denied that he had underestimated the Prime Minister. "He's been Chancellor for 10 years, he managed to dislodge a Prime Minister who had won three elections. I've never underestimated Gordon Brown," he told Radio 4's Today programme.

"But I think what people will see in the run-up to the next election is that all of the problems the country faces today - whether it is NHS closures, whether it is family and social breakdown, whether it is a weak pensions system, whether it is the stealth taxes they are having to pay that is making the cost of living so hard to meet - they can trace all of those decisions back to Gordon Brown as Chancellor."

Downing Street said the Government had boosted families through the working family tax credit and child tax credit that topped up the income of poorer households.

There was further evidence of the bitterness between the two sides as Tory chief whip Patrick McLoughlin sent out an email to all of the party's MPs to be careful of Labour "dirty tricks".

It emerged at the weekend that the Daily Mirror had tried to place a journalist in the office of party chairman Caroline Spelman.

Mr Cameron made clear that he would not back off his focus on the importance of the causes of crime. "All of us know that tough penalties on their own are not enough.

"I believe it's because of social breakdown, it's because of family breakdown, it's because of a lack of discipline in schools, it's a lack of proper values being taught in the home.

"We are not really going to solve the crime problem unless we solve the family problem."