PRIME MINISTER David Cameron celebrated a shameful total of over two million unemployed yesterday while he left thousands of AstraZeneca jobs threatened by a Pfizer takeover.

Mr Cameron boasted of “a massive fall in unemployment,” but Labour leader Ed Miliband accused him in the Commons of acting as “a PR man” for the job-destroying Pfizer drugs giant.

While Mr Miliband welcomed the fall in the jobless total, Labour backbenchers tried to puncture Mr Cameron’s inflated joy over the figures.

Stockton MP Alex Cunningham pointed out that many “jobs” were low-paid, part-time and based on zero-hours contracts.

Official figures showed an unemployment total of 2.2 million, down 133,000 to a five-year low of 6.8 per cent.

The number of people classed as self-employed increased by 375,000 over the past year to 4.55 million, but unions cautioned that lack of jobs was forcing people into “self-employment.”

During noisy exchanges on the threatened takeover of AstraZeneca, Mr Cameron claimed the government was “battling for Britain’s interests” in talks with Pfizer.

Mr Miliband retorted: “His negotiations are not working. They are worthless.”

The Labour leader shouted across at the PM: “You should have a proper test of the public interest and if the deal does not pass, you should block it.”

He accused Mr Cameron of failing to intervene to defend up to 30,000 jobs linked to AstraZeneca, including 7,000 directly employed.

“You are falling back on the old idea that the market always knows best,” added Mr Miliband.

Science Minister David Willetts blurted out the facile nature of the government’s talks with Pfizer and AstraZeneca when he confessed that shareholders would ultimately be allowed to decide on the takeover.

He told the Commons science and technology committee that “it has been a historic policy of British governments that ultimately these are decisions for shareholders.”

Pfizer chief executive Ian Read admitted to the committee that his company would reconsider its involvement in Britain if a future government “changes its tax regime.”

n Pay including bonuses rose 1.7 per cent over the past year, while excluding bonuses the figure was 1.3 per cent.

This compares with rises in the consumer prices index of 1.6 per cent and the broader retail prices index of 2.5 per cent.