Countries are different. They make different choices. We cannot harmonise everything.

Warm congratulations to my friend Barack Obama. Look forward to continuing to work together.

What you call austerity is what I might call efficiency.

People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity or their taxes are used to bail out governments on the other side of the continent.

Countries are different. They make different choices. We cannot harmonise everything. For example, it is neither right nor necessary to claim that the integrity of the single market, or full membership of the European Union requires the working hours of British hospital doctors to be set in Brussels irrespective of the views of British parliamentarians and practitioners.

The well of public opinion has been well and truly poisoned by the Iraq episode.

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