We cannot go on as we are with 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit, 500,000 of them are under 35. Are we really saying there are half a million people in this country under 35 who are simply too ill to work? I don’t think that’s right.

Just as I believe that Britain should want to remain in the EU so the EU should want us to stay.

Taken as a whole, Europe's share of world output is projected to fall by almost a third in the next two decades. This is the competitiveness challenge - and much of our weakness in meeting it is self-inflicted. Complex rules restricting our labour markets are not some naturally occurring phenomenon.

But we will say something else. That for far too long in this country, people who can work, people who are able to work, and people who choose not to work: you cannot go on claiming welfare like you are now.

The next Prime Minister walking through that door will be me or Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, you can choose an economy that grows, that creates jobs, that generates the money to ensure a properly funded and improving National Health Service ... and a government that will cut taxes for 30 million hard-working people ... or you can choose the economic chaos of Ed Miliband's Britain.

I am not a British isolationist. I don't just want a better deal for Britain. I want a better deal for Europe too.

The last thing I'd say is that you can achieve a lot of things in politics. You can get a lot of things done. And that, in the end - the public service, the national interest: that is what it's all about. Nothing is really impossible if you put your mind to it. After all, as I once said: I was the future once.