There’s another way we are getting behind business – by sorting out the banks. Taxpayers bailed you out. Now it’s time for you to repay the favour and start lending to Britain’s small businesses.

I mean, I’m a conservative. I believe that, you know, if you borrow too much, you just build up debts for your children to pay off. You put pressure on interest rates. You put at risk your economy. That’s the case in Britain. We’re not a reserve currency, so we need to get on and deal with this issue.

We cannot go on as we are with 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit, 500,000 of them are under 35. Are we really saying there are half a million people in this country under 35 who are simply too ill to work? I don’t think that’s right.

We will say to people that if you can work, and if you want to work, we will do everything we can to help you. We will give you the training, we will give you the support, we will give you the advice to get you going and get you back at work.

At a time when we’re having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud.

It is vital that we get these policies right as we take forward our plans to drive down the deficit and transform our economy.

But we will say something else. That for far too long in this country, people who can work, people who are able to work, and people who choose not to work: you cannot go on claiming welfare like you are now.

What we’re putting forward is the most radical reform of the welfare state… for 60 years. I think it will have a transformative effect in making sure that everyone is better off in work and better off working rather than on benefits.

I think we need to just be very clear about what we’re trying to do in Afghanistan. Frankly, we’re not trying to create the perfect democracy. We’re never going to create some ideal society. We are simply there for our own national security.

We need the Chinese to – you know, spend more, save less – consume more and not be so focused on exports. There are big changes we need in the world.

There’s another way we are getting behind business – by sorting out the banks. Taxpayers bailed you out. Now it’s time for you to repay the favour and start lending to Britain’s small businesses.

If you can work and if you’re offered a job and you don’t take it, you cannot continue to claim benefits. It will be extremely tough.

On the one hand we have got to ask, are there some areas of universal benefits that are no longer affordable? But on the other hand let us look at the issue of dependency where we have trapped people in poverty through the extent of welfare that they have.

I know the British people and they are not passengers – they are drivers.

Cap the well, yes. Clear up the mess, yes. Make compensation – yes, absolutely. But would it be right to have legislation that independently targets BP rather than other companies? I don’t think that – would be right.

We spend billions of pounds on welfare, yet millions are trapped on welfare. It’s not worth their while going into work.