David Cameron has admitted he botched the handling of the row over his financial affairs, telling Tory activists it had "not been a great week".

The Prime Minister confirmed he would publish his tax returns as he accepted the blame for the controversy over his connection to his late father's offshore business interests.

Speaking at the Conservative Party's spring forum in central London, he said: "It has not been a great week. I know that I should have handled this better, I could have handled this better.

"I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them.

"Don't blame Number 10 Downing Street or nameless advisers, blame me."

Mr Cameron continued: "I was obviously very angry about what people were saying about my dad. I loved my dad, I miss him every day.

"He was a wonderful father and I'm very proud of everything he did.

"But I mustn't let that cloud the picture. The facts are these: I bought shares in a unit trust, shares that are like any other sorts of shares and I paid taxes on them in exactly the same way.

"I sold those shares. In fact, I sold all the shares that I owned, on becoming Prime Minister.

"And later on I will be publishing the information that goes into my tax return, not just for this year but the years gone past because I want to be completely open and transparent about these things.

"I will be the first Prime Minister, the first leader of a major political party, to do that and I think it is the right thing to do."

The Prime Minister has admitted he had made a £19,000 profit from a Bahamas-based fund set up by his father Ian Cameron.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for the Prime Minister to make a formal Commons statement on the issue, claiming Mr Cameron had "misled the public" and "lost the trust of the British people".

Mr Corbyn said he would publish his own tax return "very, very soon" and insisted there were "no surprises there" as he demanded action to crack down on tax havens.

The Labour leader said Mr Cameron had painted a "confusing" picture over his tax affairs as he suggested the Prime Minister should reveal details about the Blairmore Holdings trust as well as his own finances.

"He has made a series of statements over the week which are somewhat confusing," Mr Corbyn told Sky News. "We have finally reached a position where he is going to publish his tax return, apparently, and also tell us how much money was made from this offshore trust, what tax he paid and what tax was paid by the trust.

"That's my point: this isn't just about an individual, this is about us looking at the whole question of tax evasion and tax avoidance on a bigger scale."

The Labour leader insisted he was not attacking pension funds that use similar arrangements to the Camerons, although he suggested he would like to see them invest in infrastructure projects instead.

"This isn't about attacking pension funds, this is about saying to the very wealthy and those that feel it is okay to move their money offshore in order to avoid taxation: no it's not.

"Ask yourself the question: when you get ill, if you go to hospital, you want the hospital to be there. It's got to be paid for by somebody."