The worship of youth has diminished - perhaps generally - in recent years.

We need a new British business bank with a clean balance sheet and an ability to expand lending rapidly to the manufacturers, exporters and high-growth companies that power our economy. Today I can announce we will have one.

I made friends with a boy who was a communist when I was 13 and that broadened my political views, but it also brought me into conflict with my father who was very Right-wing.

My job is to support businesses, that means promoting British commerce in the big emerging markets that have been neglected in the past. It means keeping Britain open to inward investors, trade and skilled workers. It means cutting red tape which is suffocating growing companies which create jobs.

I can't think of anything I would rather do with my money than buy my children the best possible education.

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.

Because obviously the whole purpose of putting records out is purely and simply to make money.

We are sold the idea of a refugee as a tiny child sitting crying, as a way of raising money, but elderly ladies and kids largely can't move. The demographic is mostly young men.