At the moment we are hard-wired into the European markets - 50% of our exports go to Europe - and that has not been good for the UK. So I'm not saying "make Britain entirely dependent on China". I'm saying "let's diversify a bit". When I became chancellor, China was our ninth largest trading partner. This is the world's second biggest economy. China was doing more business with Belgium than it was with Britain.

I didn't come from a traditional Tory background; it was urban and metropolitan.

No other chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people he has the political will to implement his own Budget.

You cannot tackle Britain's debts without tackling the unreformed welfare system.

The rise in world oil prices has been larger than anyone forecast.

People know that billions of pounds are wasted. Billions of pounds never get near the families that need it. It is an absolute outrage that hard-working people go out to work every day, get up early, come back late, don't see enough of their families in order to pay taxes to fund vast bureaucracies that are inefficient in order to fund a welfare system which allows too many people to sit for the whole of their lives on out-of-work benefits without going out to look for work.

Everyone in our society has had to make a contribution towards dealing with the debts.