We've got to be explicit that the road to greater economic success does not lie in this cosy assumption that you can move from a single market through a single currency to harmonising all your taxes and then having a federal fiscal policy and then effectively having a federal state.

To be a teacher you must be a prophet - because you are trying to prepare people for a world thirty to fifty years into the future.

The doubling of oil prices ... is creating a more difficult environment in which to act.

I did maths for a year at university. I don't think I was very good at it. And some people would say it shows.

...in just 25 years the glaciers in the Himalayas which provide water for three-quarters of a billion people could disappear entirely.

No one should be held back from realising their potential by fears that they will not be able to afford to go to university or that they will graduate with unmanageable levels of debt.

...the world needs to face up to the challenge of climate change, and to do so now. It is clear that climate change poses an urgent challenge, not only a challenge that threatens the environment but also international peace and security, prosperity and development. And as the Stern report showed, the economic effects of climate change on this scale cannot be ignored, but the costs can be limited if we act early