In Britain, what we've done is say to 485 million people, 'You can all come, every one of you. You're unemployed? You've got a criminal record? Please come. You've got 19 children? Please come.' We've lost any sense of perspective on this.

The banking collapse was caused, more than anything, by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation, rather than by greed.

I do think that the banking system is now in the most perilous state we've seen in over 70 years.

Minimum sales prices for alcohol are a startlingly bad idea. As with excise duties, the effects are regressive.

Greece isn't a democracy now it's run through a troika - three foreign officials that fly into Athens airport and tell the Greeks what they can and can't do.

Any normal and fair-minded person would have a perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door.

There's unrecognizable change happening in Britain. The life prospects and job prospects, particularly of working-class people, have been severely dented. Without anyone being asked.