The Foreign Office is a very important arm of the British state and I think Britain has a fantastic diplomatic service. We are the only country in the world spending 2% of our national income on defence and 0.7% of our national income on aid. We are the only country in the world doing both of those things.

There are those people who don't want change. Well there needs to be a coalition for change amongst the hard-working mainstream majority of the country to crack on and sort out Britain's problems.

Put on top of that the fact that the whole world is looking at Britain and saying how is this country going to pay its way in the future. They are looking at other countries like Greece who can't pay their way in the future and you see savage spending cuts, big cuts in pay.

[Banks] have a clear obligation to help get this country off its addiction to debt because they sure as hell helped to get this country addicted to debt.

I'm not saying "job done" but I am actually pretty confident that Britain can be one of the biggest winners from these big global changes that are taking place and indeed become the richest of the major economies in the world in this coming generation.

I want Britain to be the home of successful competitive and stable financial services.

Well you know I've attracted a lot of criticism by, for example, suggesting that child benefit should be taken away from higher rate taxpaying families.