I would say I have taken substantive action to make things easier for people.

I have done everything I can to move Britain out of the financial danger zone.

I want Britain to be a global financial centre but I want it to be properly regulated.

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.

What I'm interested in is Britain projecting itself abroad, and through that its values and the things it holds dear. And I don't think you do that by refusing to talk to the world's second-largest economy [China]. In fact, that is positively counter-productive in my view.

I believe that I'm entitled to regard my pre-political life as off-limits in terms of what can be looked at and judged.

Britain is not part of the single currency. That is a decision we have taken, a voluntary decision of this country, but as a result are part of a European Union 19 of whose members are rapidly integrating, creating political, fiscal, monetary, economic union to make their currency work. And that is increasingly rubbing up against the operation.