During my campaign, I had come across a small number of (mostly) young men, who had strongly racist views. They told me they would only vote for a party that was willing to get rid of black and coloured people from this country. What struck me as strange is that they weren't bothered about the thousands of white Europeans arriving from Central and Eastern Europe.

I think it's incredibly basic: we have to now deliver all of the huge advantages of trading with the 92 per cent of people in the world who aren't in the EU, so for me that was the final deciding factor.

I absolutely am a Christian and I am very proud of it.

Actually I do believe we need a proper licensed regime that works better and is much more focused on animal welfare.

I made very clear at the time that the love of same sex couples is every bit as valuable as that of opposite sex couples but nevertheless my view actually is that marriage in the biblical sense is very clearly from the many many Christians who wrote to me on the subject in their opinion can only be between a man and a woman.

I came into politics because of a real childhood concern about the Cold War. So to me the importance of the nuclear deterrent is actually really ingrained in me.

I think we have muddled the terms of marriage, civil partnership, registry office, church etc. I would have liked that to have been clarified. I didn't really like the legislation that was the problem but I absolutely support gay marriage.