When I Was A Child We Were

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.

My College, Fitzwilliam, Was Pretty Good But Unfashionable And I Lived In Digs So I Was Not Part Of The Cloistered 'old College' Environment, Which Frankly Was A Bit Intimidating. But I Worked Hard And Settled In By Exploring Politics And Girls.

And Humility In Politics Means Accepting That One Party Doesn't Have All The Answers; Recognising That Working In Partnership Is Progress Not Treachery.

I Clearly Believe A Lot More Than Some Of My Coalition Colleagues - Tories - In Redistribution And Using The Tax System For That Purpose. I Also Believe In The Government Having An Active Role In The Economy, Which Is Having An Industrial Strategy. I'm Not A Believer In Laissez-faire.

In My Job I Meet Many Outstanding, World Class, British Based Companies. But We Need More Companies And More Jobs In The Companies We Have.