It's the Labour Government that have brought us record peacetime taxation. They've got the usual Socialist disease - they've run out of other people's money.

I don't want to fight any wars; if you can get them off before we get there, you do it, but off they go.

People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

I believe in the acceptance of personal responsibility, freedom of choice, and the British Empire, which took freedom and the rule of law to countries which would never have known it otherwise.

What really gets me is this - it's very ironic that those who are most critical of extra tax are those who are most vociferous in demanding extra expenditure. What gets me even more is that having demanded that extra expenditure they are not prepared to face the consequences of their own action and stand by the necessity to get the tax to pay for it. I wish some of them had a bit more guts and courage than they have.

Unless we change our ways and our direction, our greatness as a nation will soon be a footnote in the history books, a distant memory of an offshore island, lost in the mist of time like Camelot, remembered kindly for its noble past.

Being prime minister is a lonely job... you cannot lead from the crowd.