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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

2012 has been an extraordinary year for our country. We cheered our Queen to the rafters with the Jubilee, showed the world what we're made of by staging the most spectacular Olympic and Paralympic Games ever and - let's not forget - punched way above our weight in the medals table.

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.

As PM, you have got to do everything from chairing the Cabinet to ceremonial things. You have also got to do the nitty gritty. I do get stuck into the detail.

As far as I am concerned this referendum should settle the matter. I believe it will one way or another be decisive. Britain will not want to go through this again. On the other hand if we vote to leave, this really is irreversible.

Because with courage and conviction I believe we can deliver a more flexible, adaptable and open European Union in which the interests and ambitions of all its members can be met.

Britain is characterized not just by its independence but, above all, by its openness.

Britain is not in the single currency, and we're not going to be. But we all need the eurozone to have the right governance and structures to secure a successful currency for the long term.

Christmas gives us the opportunity to pause and reflect on the important things around us - a time when we can look back on the year that has passed and prepare for the year ahead.

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.

Countries are different. They make different choices. We cannot harmonise everything.

Edward Heath and Richard Nixon took personal awkwardness with each other to new and excruciating levels.

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.

From Caesar's legions to the Napoleonic wars. From the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution to the defeat of nazism. We have helped to write European history, and Europe has helped write ours.

Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.

I am a country boy at heart.

I am a very instinctive Conservative. I have created a welfare system where it pays to work. I have created independent schools within the state sector bringing excellence to children wherever they are.

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

I am very proud to have kept my commitment to introduce the married couples' tax allowance. I think it will prove very popular. I think it's absolutely right that we recognise marriage in the tax system properly, and I would like to see that expanded.

I believe something very deeply. That Britain's national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union and that such a European Union is best with Britain in it.

I believe that in life, you have to give things your best shot, do your best. You have to focus on what needs to be done, do the right thing, not the popular thing.

I don't just want a better deal for Britain. I want a better deal for Europe too. So I speak as British prime minister with a positive vision for the future of the European Union. A future in which Britain wants, and should want, to play a committed and active part.

I don't want to be Prime Minister of England, I want to be Prime Minister of the whole of the United Kingdom.

I have a very clear view, which is that if you disagree with the policies of Israel, fine, say so, but that is never a reason to take that out on Jewish communities.

I have no time for those who say there is no way Scotland could go it alone. I know first-hand the contribution Scotland and Scots make to Britain's success - so for me there's no question about whether Scotland could be an independent nation.

I think it true that, you know, sometimes things start to change even before a government changes and, actually, I think you can begin to see even the Labour machine beginning to understand that it has become over-reliant on targets and processes, that local governments have been over-bossed and bullied.

I want completing the single market to be our driving mission. I want us to be at the forefront of transformative trade deals with the US, Japan and India as part of the drive towards global free trade. And I want us to be pushing to exempt Europe's smallest entrepreneurial companies from more EU directives.

I was the future once.

I watched, for the 17th and hopefully the last time, The 'Guns of Navarone' on New Year's Eve. I always watch just in case the explosives don't go off in the end. You have to watch the end, just to make sure it's OK.

I would be heartbroken if I ever thought that people in the Jewish community thought that Britain was no longer a safe place for them.

I'm a classic Church of England member, but part of its strength is the fact that it doesn't ask us to sign up to too much of a canon... but I've always found the teachings of Jesus and the Bible quite useful as a sort of handy guide.

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

I've said I'll stand for a full second term, but I think after that it will be time for new leadership. Terms are like Shredded Wheat - two are wonderful but three might just be too many.

If we are going to try to get across to the poorest people in the world that we care about their plight and we want them to join one world with the rest of us, we have got to make promises and keep promises.