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Grumpy David Cameron lost his rag and launched an astonishing attack on Britain’s media during a bad-tempered, red-faced tirade.

The Prime Minister lashed out at as he denied suggestions he had taken his eye off the ball because of the EU referendum.

“I don’t accept the premise of your question for one moment,” he snapped.

Mr Cameron then bizarrely accused reporters of “setting each others’ hair on fire”.

The Tory leader has been under mounting pressure in recent weeks after George Osborne’s shambolic Budget triggered a humiliating U-turn over planned cuts to disability benefit, the steel crisis and the Tory civil war in the run-up to June’s crunch referendum.

Read more:What is it like to date Dave?

And he unleashed all his bottled-up frustration as he hit out during a 15-minute briefing with journalists in the luxury library of the British ambassador’s residence in Washington.

(Image: Getty Images)

Railing against the Press, he went on: “I think you all spend too much time reading each others’ newspapers. I would avoid.”

His attack intensified as he was forced to defend Brexit -backing Cabinet Ministers who warned the Government’s flagship minimum wage hike will fuel a surge in migration.

“We said there was going to be a clear Government line on Europe, which there is, and ministers are able to depart from it and make their arguments in their own way,” Mr Cameron said.

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“The world hasn’t stopped turning, the Government hasn’t stopped operating.

“You all go around setting each others’ hair on fire and getting very excited about this but it’s all a lot of processology.

“I can’t see what the issue is.

“You have got a Government with a packed programme, delivering that programme – but at the same time we’re having a very important debate about Europe.”

(Image: Rex Features)

Asked about his thinly-veiled attack on top Tory Boris Johnson over his decision to back Brexit, the stressed PM claimed: “When? I don’t think the words ‘Boris Johnson’ passed my lips.”

Mr Cameron’s surprise attack came less than 48 hours after he returned from a sun-soaked family holiday in Lanzarote.

Before jetting to the Spanish isle, he told Tory MPs he “could do with more time to think” and moaned about the gruelling 24-hour news cycle during a “tough week”.