DAVID Cameron has insisted Bradford and other cash-strapped councils can cope with huge looming cuts – and warned they would be even bigger under Labour.

But his comments have angered council leader David Green, who warned the ongoing cuts could bankrupt some local authorities.

Bradford Council has warned it must find around £20m of savings next year and a further £50m the year after, on current projections.

Asked how much more councils could take, Mr Cameron pointed to rising reserves and said: “They do have financial capacity. I think there is more efficiency to be delivered.”

In an interview with the T&A, he argued the £5.3bn Better Care Fund would ease the pain, saying: “That’s NHS money that they have not previously been able to see, into the social care system.”

And he said Labour would be forced into bigger town hall cuts, because it backed an overall £30bn spending reduction, but not the Tory plan to take £12bn from welfare.

Mr Cameron said: “They all voted for this £30bn adjustment and you know what you’re getting with us.

“The others have not said how they will fill in that £30bn. It looks like much higher tax rises and no real changes to welfare - so deeper departmental cuts.”

But Cllr Green said Labour was pledging to bring in a fairer funding system for local councils, so northern cities in particular got a better deal.

He said: "We have got a ludicrous situation where we are seeing more affluent areas, which don't have the sort of needs we have in Bradford and other northern cities and towns, getting increased funding while we face massive cuts."

Cllr Green said reserves couldn't be spent on ongoing costs like social care, because the money would soon run out.

And he said if the current scale of cuts were to continue, some local authorities could "just become financially unviable".

He said: "His comments should be of real concern to the people of Bradford."

The prime minister also criticised his own civil servants for trying to obstruct the replacement of the area's hated Pacer trains.

When the department for transport fulfilled Mr Cameron’s pledge – to the T&A – to axe the outdated trains, a “ministerial direction” was issued, revealing that top civil servants disagreed.

Yesterday, he said: “Amazingly we had to over–rule the official machine, an instruction had to be given.

“It’s extraordinary how Government works these days – to get rid of trains that everyone agreed were completely out of date.”

And, for the first time, the prime minister promised that “grassroots” members - in Tory seats such as Keighley and Shipley – would get a say before a fresh Coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats in the event of a second hung parliament.