David Cameron is under fire after it was revealed he has a sign reading “Calm down dear it’s only a recession” in his £1.5m country home.

Labour said it was “astonishing” that the former Prime Minister appeared to be treating the damage to people’s lives from an economic crash as “a joke”.

The presence of the sign became known when Samantha Cameron opened the doors of the couple’s Cotswolds cottage to a reporter from Harper’s Bazaar fashion magazine.

The article describes how a tour started in “the gloriously untidy kitchen, where the radio is playing indie rock from BBC 6 Music”.

It says: “A placard that reads ‘Calm down dear it’s only a recession’ leans up against the window behind the sink, and an old Parliament Square road sign (which looks like the genuine article) is collecting dust in the corner.”

Ian Lavery, the Labour party chairman, said: “The Tories’ era of austerity has had a very real and damaging impact on people’s lives across the country.

“That it could be treated as a joke in the very household that imposed it is astonishing.

“This is yet another example of how completely out of touch the Tories are with ordinary people, who have spent seven years suffering from the consequences of their devastating and unnecessary cuts.”

And Tim Farron, the former Liberal Democrat leader, said: “People will now be wondering if they have a similar placard in each of their homes.”

In the interview, Samantha also admits the house “is slightly falling down”, adding: “The windows are rotting, the roof needs replacing, but it’s lovely.”

That confession prompted one former aide to Gordon Brown to tweet: “He didn’t even fix HIS OWN BLOODY ROOF when the sun was shining.”

Before becoming Prime Minister, Mr Cameron repeatedly accused Labour of failing to prepare Britain for the economic crash, saying: “In the years of plenty, they put nothing aside. They didn’t fix the roof when the sun was shining.”

The stone cottage is the property where Mr Cameron, after leaving Westminster, put up a £25,000 “shepherd’s hut” at the bottom of his garden, in which to write his memoirs.

The interviewer comments on the tasteful nudes on the walls, piles of fashion magazines on the coffee table and cosy throws on the sofa.

The cottage is “complete with roses climbing the facade, a flourishing vegetable patch and a trampoline in the garden,” she writes.