In a global race, can we really justify the huge number of expensive peripheral European institutions? Can we justify a commission that gets ever larger? Can we carry on with an organisation that has a multibillion pound budget but not enough focus on controlling spending and shutting down programmes that haven't worked?

It does make a broader point which is the fight against Islamist terror is not just one that we can wage by the police and border control. It needs every school, every university, every college, every community to recognize they have a role to play, we all have a role to play in stopping people from having their minds poisoned by this appalling death cult.

Christmas gives us the opportunity to pause and reflect on the important things around us - a time when we can look back on the year that has passed and prepare for the year ahead.

I want to be the voice of change and hope. I want to confront the big challenges this country faces.

The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy. In its long history, Europe has experience [with] heretics who turned out to have a point.

Britain is characterized not just by its independence but, above all, by its openness.

Now I know which came first - the chicken not the egg.