David Cameron
On Tony Blair and Blairism
Cameron considers himself Blair's successor
'I am the heir to Blair.' (10/3/2015) [1]
Blair as the future
'I want to talk about the future. He was the future once.' (12/7/2015) [2]
On Conservatism
Cameron sees himself as a true Tory
'I am Conservative to the core of my being, as those who know me best will testify.' (23/1/2006) [3]
On big government
'There is such a thing as society. It's just not the same thing as the state.' (12/6/2005) [4]
On immigration
On non-EU migration caps
'We will take steps to take net migration back to the levels of the 1990s – tens of thousands a year, not hundreds of thousands.' (2010) [5]
Ending free movement
'We want to create the toughest system in the EU for dealing with abuse of free movement … Accepting the principle of free movement of workers is a key to being part of the single market. A market from which Britain has benefited enormously. So we do not want to destroy that principle or turn it on its head … But freedom of movement has never been an unqualified right, and we now need to allow it to operate on a more sustainable basis in the light of the experience of recent years.'(2014) [6]
British citizens using free movement
'Our membership of the EU allows British people free movement to travel, live and work in other European countries, and some 1.4 million British citizens exercise that right – including several hundred thousand in Spain alone. The same freedom of movement is true for EU nationals coming to Britain…In fact, in recent years the numbers coming here from the EU, and the numbers leaving here to go to other EU countries, have been broadly in balance.' (2013) [7]
Failure of integration
'When there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods, perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there, on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate, that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods.' (4/13/2011) [8]
National Health Service (NHS)
Budget issues
'The next Conservative government will protect the NHS budget and continue to invest more.' (30/8/2014) [9]
Seven day NHS
'With a future Conservative government, we would have a truly seven-day NHS.' (27/3/2015) [10]
ISIS and Islam
ISIS does not represent Muslims
'They are killing and slaughtering thousands of people... they boast of their brutality... they claim to do this in the name of Islam, that is nonsense, Islam is a religion of peace. They are not Muslims, they are monsters.' (8/14/2014) [11]
On his alleged childhood drug use
'I did lots of things before I came into politics which I shouldn't have done. We all did.' [12]