I find China such a fascinating and interesting country. Each time I come back something has changed and it's moved on in leaps and bounds.

China is absolutely one of the biggest players in the world and if Britain wants to be connected to the world it has to be connected to China.

I'm fed up with Britain being condemned to this future where we borrow the Chinese in order to buy from the Chinese the things that they make for us.

Britain cannot afford to cut itself off from what is going on in the world, we are too interconnected with what is going on, we have a powerful history and tradition of taking an interest in what is going on in the world, we've also got a very real interest in the future, in remaining connected.

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.

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.

I understand the damage the expenses crisis has done to Parliament, and the paramount importance of restoring trust in our politics.