Tête-à-tête looks more like head-to-head Cross-channel political feuding between David Cameron and François Hollande intensified on Monday when an ally of the British prime minister claimed the French president had run his economy "into the sand." The comments from Grant Shapps, Conservative party chairman, will antagonise Mr Hollande ahead of an Anglo-French summit this month that threatens to be one of the most fractious in years. According to some French officials, the Elysée had considered postponing the January 31 summit in protest at derogatory remarks aimed at Mr Hollande by Mr Cameron and his ministers. The idea of a postponement was denied by Downing Street and French diplomatic sources. Mr Shapps's comments were the clearest sign yet that Mr Cameron's Tory party wants to use the Socialist president as a Parisian proxy for attacks on Ed Miliband, leader of Britain's Labour party. "We don't have to ask searching questions about what Miliband would do in power," Mr Shapps told the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "He has said, "we will follow Hollande's example."" Mr Shapps said Mr Hollande had "led his countrymen back into the dust," adding: "It is obvious not only have they run into the sand but that is exactly what Miliband wants to do with the British economy." This month, Mr Cameron angered Paris by boasting about Britain's economic recovery and making a thinly veiled attack on other countries - without naming France - for pursuing "mistaken" policies of more borrowing, spending and debt. The criticism is flowing in both directions. Everything from Mr Cameron's policy on the EU - regarded with a mixture of bafflement and exasperation in Paris - to Britain's "zero hour" employment contracts, which offer no guaranteed hours or pay, has come under fire in Paris. "The situation in Great Britain, with the mass poverty it has produced, is a lot worse than in France," Jean-Marc Ayrault, the prime minister, said last month. If I seek a model for reforming France, it is certainly not by copying others that are not better. Laurent Fabius, French foreign minister, last week made a pointed dig at Mr Cameron's previous criticism of Mr Hollande's tax policies, in which he promised to "roll out the red carpet" to welcome French entrepreneurs escaping high levies, saying: "If by misfortune our British friends decide to quit the EU, we will certainly roll out the red carpet to their businesses." Aside from the sparring over the economy and differences on Europe, the much sounder defence and military relationship between Paris and London took a blow in September when the House of Commons voted against military intervention in Syria. France also took a harder line in talks on Iran's nuclear programme. Mr Hollande is likely to seek reassurance that the UK remains committed to playing a joint interventionist role where merited in the future. He is likely to regard Britain's willingness to help out in the dangerous operation in the Central African Republic as an immediate test. Depite the cross-channel political sparring, the summit is expected to go ahead on schedule at the RAF Brize Norton air base in Mr Cameron's Oxfordshire constituency. In what one government official described as a sign that Anglo-French diplomacy was not dead, a plan to host the summit at Blenheim Palace was scrapped, fearing the venue might upset the French. The huge pile was built as a gift for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, to mark his victory over a Franco-Bavarian army in 1704. Speaking to the FT on Monday evening, Mr Ayrault blamed the comments by Mr Cameron and his ministers on the problems facing the UK prime minister's Conservative party. "It's very complicated for the [Conservatives]," he said.