Telegraph gives Cameron a bashing for 'apology'

It was the Sun yesterday which had a go at David Cameron over defence cuts, today the Tory-supporting Daily Telegraph criticises the Prime Minister for claiming Britain had caused many of the world's problems.

His remarks were made to students while on a visit to Pakistan, when he was asked how Britain could help to end the row over Kashmir.

The Telegraph quotes Cameron saying: “I don’t want to try to insert Britain in some leading role where, as with so many of the world’s problems, we are responsible for the issue in the first place.”

The Telegraph says in a leader, headlined No apology required: "If there is one thing we are entitled to expect from our Prime Minister when he is overseas, it is that he should not run down his own country in order to ingratiate himself with his hosts. Unfortunately, David Cameron, on a visit to Pakistan yesterday, seems either to have forgotten or ignored this rule."

The leader goes on: "He could learn something from his predecessor in No 10. On a visit to Africa several years ago, Gordon Brown responded to an attack on Britain by Thabo Mbeki, then South Africa’s president, by declaring that “the days of Britain having to apologise for its colonial history are over”, and that “we should celebrate much of our past, rather than apologise for it”. We agree. Our past is by no means perfect, but it ill behoves the Prime Minister to lay so many of the world’s ills at our own door."

• The Guardian in its coverage of Cameron's visit to Pakistan describes his remarks as having been "a semi-jocular aside".