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When you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we're 'well-placed to weather the storm', I have to tell you that you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line.
We need to build on what we know works - local oversight of schools to keep a check on performance, timely interventions in schools to support those at risk of failing, and partnerships between schools to help each one to improve.
Let the message go out - a new generation has taken charge of Labour which is optimistic about our country, optimistic about our world, optimistic about the power of politics. We are optimistic and together we will change Britain.
I think it is absolutely central to our economic plan as a country not only that we put our own house in order but that we better connect ourselves with other parts of the world, particularly the faster growing parts of the world.
We should begin to remind people they are always after your money and if you are on something around average earnings you really don't have that spare capacity to pay for all these follies that Labour keep spending their money on.
You either believe in Europe at any price: in other words we have to be in Europe at any price because you can't survive without it, or you don't. If you don't it tends to suggest there is a price which you are not willing to pay.
The first thing I would like to say is that I don't think folk at Westminster - or for that matter at Holyrood - constitute an elite. They are representatives who are elected and who are at the service of voters who can fire them.
You all know my commitment to the National Health Service. While I am Secretary of State, the NHS will never be fragmented, privatised or undermined. I am personally committed to an NHS which gives equal access, and excellent care.
People come from all over the world - from Europe and further afield - to work, study, and innovate in our country. More than 50,000 work in our National Health Service, making a vital contribution in caring for our ageing society.
Work is the way we contribute to society, part of a reciprocal social contract - the giving of our effort and our taking when in need - that holds our society together. We work, we build our society, and we share in its prosperity.
Today, the UK must be the pioneer of a new model of economic change, that integrates social and environmental consideration. This is not just a question of values and moral duty. It is about our economy's capacity to sustain itself
I still think carefully about what I'm going to say. I use me heart and head technique, in which the heart says, 'get stuck in, Dennis!', and the head says, 'just a minute... ' But I probably don't use this as often as some others.
Henry Kissinger is the greatest living war criminal in the world today, with the blood of millions of people in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos and Chile and East Timor on his hands. He will never appear in a court or be behind bars.
I think that the status that you have in life should be reflected in official documents. If you are married, fine, if you are living with someone, fine, if you are single, fine. We don't want to tell people how to live their lives.
It is all around us, hidden in plain sight. It is walking our streets, supplying shops and supermarkets, working in fields, factories or nail bars, trapped in brothels or cowering behind the curtains in an ordinary street: slavery.
Unfortunately, if the man who leaves the prison gates is just as likely or - as is sometimes grievously the case - more likely to offend as he was when he entered them, then we fail not only the individual but public safety as well.
You have to get the balance right, especially with public health, so that you take the measures that benefit the public's health but without causing people to resent you so that you actually don't cure the ill that you seek to cure.
I'm not suggesting we suddenly become a jingoistic, closed-door society that erects barricades at Dover. That would not be in the interests of London. But we can't, in my view, go on for ever accepting an unlimited number of people.
To be clear, aiming to reduce the national debt in the long term and running small surpluses when the economy is operating close to full capacity is what I mean when I talk about seeking to 'balance the books' - a sensible approach.
I believe Britishness is defined not on ethnic and exclusive grounds but through shared values, our history of tolerance, openness and internationalism and our commitment to democracy and liberty, to civic duty and the public space.
It makes no sense to spend precious resources on propping up loss-making, state-owned enterprises when they could be used to get more children into school or provide more midwives to reduce the number of mothers dying in childbirth.
My main argument against staying in the E.U. has been the poor economic record of the E.U. as a whole and the eurozone in particular. The performance has got worse the more the E.U. has developed joint policies and central controls.
For too long, decisions have been taken behind closed doors - tablets of stone have simply been past down to people without bothering to involve people, listen to their views or give them information about what we are doing and why.
True Christians are not bigoted and this is actually not a matter of equality, no matter how often it is referred to as equal marriage. Civil partnerships are equal to marriage - they might not have the same name but they are equal.
I never understood how much running changes your life. I'm now obsessed. When not trying to beat my personal best, I'm talking to other people about theirs, reading training advice or eating the perfect balance of carbs and protein.
A perennial problem that has faced the Scottish Highlands is that, time and again, too many of the more talented young people have had to move elsewhere - even abroad - through a lack of opportunities that should have been available.
In an age of globalisation, investment and good jobs increasingly flow to cities and regions with distinctive strengths and specialisms. These cannot be built up from Whitehall. They require local expertise, knowledge and dedication.
I believe Britishness is defined not on ethnic and exclusive grounds but through shared values; our history of tolerance, openness and internationalism; and our commitment to democracy and liberty, to civic duty and the public space.
I think it's very realistic to think we could provide additional protection for renters because for many people - renting is now the only option. It is also entirely necessary if we are to protect Londoners from rapidly rising rents.
In 1925, when Britain went back to the gold standard, that was supported by the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Bank of England, the civil service, the CBI, the TUC, the Times, the Economist; that consensus was very strong.
Providing great schooling is the single most important thing we can do to help any child from a disadvantaged background succeed. It's also the single most important thing we can do to boost the long-term productivity of our economy.
The union movement has achieved a huge amount in the past century or so. It has secured important rights at work, tackled unfair discrimination and ensured that Britain is one of the safest places in the world in which to go to work.
President Trump has a unique way of doing things different to his predecessors, but what I would say is that don't underestimate his ability to take very intractable situations and shake the deck of cards and try and find a solution.
The case for open markets, free trade, private investment and technology has never been stronger in development. Over the decades, this combination has driven down poverty, helped to tackle disease, and created jobs across the globe.
One of the things that is great about this country is that we're a meritocracy. Aspirational, hard-working people who want to come here - and who have the talent and skills to contribute to our economy and society - are very welcome.
Reducing net E.U. migration need not mean undermining the principle of free movement. When it was first enshrined, free movement meant the freedom to move to a job, not the freedom to cross borders to look for work or claim benefits.
You can't win with some people. If you're not in government, you're criticised for being not serious. If you are in government, you're criticised for wanting power. That's the Labour party's line of attack, and it's a bit ridiculous.
Our knowledge of animals and their behaviour has come a long way. We can no longer justify imprisoning them, robbing them of everything that is natural and important to them and turning them into objects of ridicule for our amusement.
One of the big problems we have in this country is that not enough people understand how important it is to save, understand the details of credit card statements, to be able to compare different APRs and the like. I support the idea.
What's interesting is whilst Shanghai has gone stellar - literally, in these massive buildings which have appeared since I first visited - Beijing has become a much more vibrant and interesting place. A lot more business is done here.
If Iran has a policy of detaining dual nationals as a tool of diplomatic leverage, then there will be consequences for Iran. We will not let them get away with it scot-free. They have to understand this is not a sustainable situation.
I wish that Iraq had not happened - and that we had not lost touch with so many of our natural supporters. But this should have provided an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats as a party. Yet their protest gains are now diminishing.
A coalition with Tories and Liberal Democrats together is a golden opportunity to create the sort of planning reform that means not only can we have more environmentally sensitive planning, but we can have more homes and more schools.
History teaches us these lessons for the interveners: leave your prejudices at home, keep your ambitions low, have enough resources to do the job, do not lose the golden hour, make security your first priority, involve the neighbours.
Well can I just make a point about the numbers because people talk a lot about police numbers as if police numbers are the holy grail. But actually what matters is what those police are doing. It's about how those police are deployed.
Being in opposition takes some getting used to. As a former minister, you don't just lose your job and the enormous resources of the civil service, you also have to watch programmes that you were involved in being gradually dismantled.
I would also like to see children aged between 11 and 18 taught financial education in a structured way in schools. I would also say that that is not enough. You have also got to improve numeracy skills, mathematical skills in schools.
We have to challenge the whole idea that it's acceptable for a society like Britain to have such a significant number of people who do not work one day of the week and don't have any possibility of improving the quality of their lives.
I've noticed that a lot of people, subsequently, when they introduce me are very careful not to say the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. A lot more people are saying Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport.
Living standards in both the public and private sector have to be brought down. The private sector has to sell more abroad and consume less at home. The government sector has to get closer to just spending what it can collect in taxes.