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.

Let's also teach people about pensions and savings, insurance and the like. But if they aren't already familiar with numbers that won't be as effective as it might be.

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 think you can look at the British economy with confidence.

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

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.

Printing money is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed.