DAVID Cameron presided over an obscene display of wild Tory cheering yesterday as workers’ wages plunged while more than two million people remained unemployed.

In a gung-ho performance at Question Time, the Prime Minister joyfully trumpeted official figures showing a 161,000 fall in unemployment to 2.16 million in the three months to April.

But he failed to spotlight a sharp fall in workers’ living standards, with average wages rising by a measly 0.7 per cent compared to a 2.5 per cent rise in the Retail Price Index.

It was left to Labour MPs and trade unions to highlight a new jump in the number of people forced to take part-time work or scratch a living by classing themselves as “self-employed.”

More than eight million people are now part-time workers, while the number of people classed as “self-employed” has risen by 337,000 over the past year to a total of 4.54m.

Tory cheers reached a crescendo in the Commons when Mr Cameron exuberantly likened his Cabinet ministers to a successful World Cup football team.

“I say if you have got a strong team with a strong plan, you stick with the team, stick with the plan and keep putting it in the back of the net!” he bellowed.

Wansbeck Labour MP Ian Lavery brought proceedings back to reality by condemning the “shocking” fact that one in three children in the north-east is living in poverty — and two thirds of them are in working households.

Figures released yesterday showed that unemployment rose by 6,000 in the north-east to a total of 131,000, nearly 10 per cent of the workforce.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey welcomed the continued fall in overall unemployment figures but warned workers not to be fooled by Tory spin.

“Precarious self-employment is soaring while the continuing wage siege feeds a fall in living standards not seen since the Victorian era,” said Mr McCluskey.

Left MP Dennis Skinner hailed growing resistance to attacks on workers’ living standards, urging a “massive turnout” for the public sector strike on July 10 “to show that we mean business.”

Halifax MP Linda Riordan protested that more and more of her constituents were suffering low pay and zero-hours contracts while company profits soared.