Rudeness is just as bad as racism says Cameron

Launching a campaign to reverse the breakdown in society, the Tory leader said the assumption that civility was on a permanent and inevitable downward slide' had to be overturned.

"We are witnessing a decline in social responsibility – caused in large part by the state taking more and more responsibility away from people," he said.

Too many children were growing up 'miserable, badly-behaved and badly-educated'.

The most important factor in changing that was encouraging 'strong' families, where children were brought up in a stable home.

Labour's tax and benefit system was perversely penalising couples who stayed together, he added, reiterating his pledge to recognise marriage with tax breaks as the 'clear-est commitment' a couple could make to each other, their children and society.

The Tory leader told the Royal Society of Arts in London that Labour's addiction to 'state interventionism' was stopping people taking responsibility for themselves.

One of a Tory government's first acts would be to give local authorities more freedom to set their own priorities and spend taxpayers' money accordingly.

Mr Cameron highlighted figures showing assaults on NHS staff running at 60,000 a year, increases inattacks on bus drivers and shopworkers, and reports that female relatives of two toddlers had urged them to fight in front of a camera.

"All these are sad signs of a culture that is becoming decivilised – and the terrible thing is, we're getting used to it," he said.

Social pressure – which was already helping to create a greener environment and to stamp out the social evil of racism – should be brought to bear.

"Swearing in public, neglecting the elderly, being rude to shop workers or bus drivers – these should be asunacceptable as racism," he said.

His speech angered Labour, which appears increasingly concerned that Mr Cameron is making the running on issues of the family and social responsibility.

Home Office minister Tony McNulty said the Government would take no lessons from Mr Cameron and his 'hug a hoodie' party.

And Downing Street took the unusual step of responding to a political speech by the Tory leader by suggesting he was 'smearing an entire generation of children' with the misbehaviour of some.

But Mr Cameron claimed Labour had taken the entirely wrong approach to anti-social behaviour with a welter of dubious 'initiatives' treating its symptoms, rather than causes.

He said: "You can put a policeman on every bus, an ASBO on every teenager and a parenting order on every parent.

"Alternatively, you can build a society where those kids know how to behave in public, because that's how they've been brought up and that's what society expects."