David Cameron

“For me, and I suspect for lots of other people too, bad things actually sometimes make you think more about faith and the fact that you're not facing these things on your own.”

“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.”

“The economy is the start and end of everything. You can't have successful education reform or any other reform if you don't have a strong economy.”

“The benefits cap is right in principle because people don't pay their taxes so that families who could work don't work. People pay their taxes so we support people who really need to be supported.”

“After the Berlin Wall came down I visited that city and I will never forget it. The abandoned checkpoints. The sense of excitement about the future. The knowledge that a great continent was coming together. Healing those wounds of our history is the central story of the European Union.”

“One of the pleas you get when you're talking to the tourist industry or the energy industry or the whoever is, 'Please, can we just have the same minister for longer than five minutes?'”

“If we left the European Union, it would be a one-way ticket, not a return. So we will have time for a proper, reasoned debate. At the end of that debate you, the British people, will decide.”

“My fear is turnout. I think a lot of people might think: 'Well, in the end, it's the rational thing to stay, but I'll let other people make that choice for me.' Don't. This is very close, no doubt about it.”

“I'm a simple small 'c' conservative who believes in public service, serving others, and doing a good job for my country.”

“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.”

“When you're taking the country through difficult times and difficult decisions you've got to take the country with you. That means permanently trying to make the argument that what you're doing is fair and seen to be fair.”

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

“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 think us leaving would have an enormous and bad effect on the rest of the EU. The EU would respond by deepening integration and becoming more of a 'political project'. It would not only be damaging ourselves but also the kind of Europe we want.”

“I think the country requires fresh leadership. I do not think I can be the captain to take the country to its next destination.”

“What we have seen with Islamist extremism, whether it is in Mali or Somalia or Afghanistan, is that the disease is not necessarily the individual country. The disease is the Islamist extremism, and that's what we have to fight; that's the narrative that we have to beat.”

“Competitiveness demands flexibility, choice and openness - or Europe will fetch up in a no-man's land between the rising economies of Asia and market-driven North America.”

“Let me completely condemn these sickening scenes; scenes of looting, scenes of vandalism, scenes of thieving, scenes of people attacking police, of people even attacking firefighters. This is criminality pure and simple and it has to be confronted.”

“I am not a British isolationist. I don't just want a better deal for Britain. I want a better deal for Europe too.”

“We have the character of an island nation: independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty. We can no more change this British sensibility than we can drain the English Channel. And because of this sensibility, we come to the European Union with a frame of mind that is more practical than emotional.”