David Cameron: How I came face to face with Jaws (and swam and ran for my life)

But when he came face-to-face with the real thing on holiday in South Africa, his customary cool was left at the Dispatch Box.

Mr Cameron has told how he spotted a shark - possibly a great white - during one of his daily swims.

And how at that moment he decided on a quick policy reversal - that saw him leap from the water and pelt up the beach to safety.

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His disclosure came during an interview with a local journalist, in which he raved about the natural beauty and unspoilt white sand near the resort of Plettenberg Bay on South Africa's south-western coast.

Mr Cameron is understood to have stayed in a rented house there with wife Samantha and two of their children, Nancy, four, and Arthur, two.

When he spied a sinister shape moving through the water towards him, he told reporter Janine Oelofse: "I ran out of there. I saw it in the water and got out very quickly."

But he soon shrugged off the incident. "I was back in the water the next day," he said.

The Tory leader might have paused for thought had he known the shark was likely to have been a great white - the maneater made famous in the film Jaws.

Twice during their stay, lifeguards on the beach where the Cameron family spent every day swimming and sunbathing alerted surfers that a great white nearly 12ft long was patrolling just behind the breakers.

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And local helicopter pilot Glen Brown, who flies tourists over the bay almost daily, said: "During two flights last week I saw a great white close to the beach."

The area is also home to a massive 26ft great white, nicknamed the Robberg Express.

The Camerons' eldest son, Ivan, five, who suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, is not thought to have joined the family in South Africa as he is unable to travel long distances.