We need more personnel within our security agencies.

At the moment we are facing a whole collection of difficult to forecast developments from the situation in China and the oil-price crash to the worrying news from some banks in Europe and the US. All of that is linked: Worldwide company debt is high and there is a lot of money in circulation. That is why necessary structural reforms are not being made.

Those who constantly qualify everything and have no opinions of their own are ultimately just as incapable of tolerance.

Britain is economically very closely integrated with its European partner countries. Were these ties to be cut, it would be a huge step backwards for the country and would weaken it considerably. In the era of globalisation, "splendid isolation" is not a smart option.

Our balanced budget has an important psychological function. It is a signal that we can't continue to constantly take on debt.

You can lead a happy life if you recognize that it's limited and completely unpredictable from one moment to the next.

My job is not to predict everything that might happen in the future, but to address what we can do today.