Top 55 David Cameron Quotes

It does not seem to me that the steps which would be needed to make Britain – and others – more comfortable in their relationship in the European Union are inherently so outlandish or unreasonable.

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?’

I believe very strongly that staying in is the right answer for Britain. And I haven’t pulled my punches, I’ve fought this campaign the only way I know how, which is to lead from the front, to be clear about what I believe, to be clear about what the consequences are.

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 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.

People feel that the EU is heading in a direction that they never signed up to. They resent the interference in our national life by what they see as unnecessary rules and regulation. And they wonder what the point of it all is. Put simply, many ask ‘why can’t we just have what we voted to join – a common market?’

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.

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.

I love cooking; it’s a very good way to get your mind off things.

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.

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.

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.

I’m not really interested in clothes. Mainly, I like wearing clothes that don’t make me stand out – I tend to go for Marks & Spencer and Gap – and I do get put in the changing room at Gap, and clothes are passed to me under the changing room door.

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.

There is a growing frustration that the EU is seen as something that is done to people rather than acting on their behalf. And this is being intensified by the very solutions required to resolve the economic problems.

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

I was the future once.

Our participation in the single market, and our ability to help set its rules is the principal reason for our membership of the EU. So it is a vital interest for us to protect the integrity and fairness of the single market for all its members.

You will feel the full force of the law and if you are old enough to commit these crimes you are old enough to face the punishments. And to these people I would say this: you are not only wrecking the lives of others, you are potentially wrecking your own life too.

I am a country boy at heart.

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.

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.

For me, there is no greater sunshine in politics or in life than to have a job, security for your family, a good school place where you know your child is going, and the sense that if I put in, there will be a decent, secure retirement at the end of it all.

One of the things I most admire about America is they have created a genuine melting pot society, a country of opportunity; you can be of any religion, colour, ethnicity, persuasion and make it to the top of your chosen field. And that’s something I admire about America and hope they continue with.

More of the same will just produce more of the same: less competitiveness, less growth, fewer jobs.

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

People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity or their taxes are used to bail out governments on the other side of the continent.

I believe in the family. I believe in marriage, and I think it’s such a great institution. I think men should be able to marry each other, and women should be able to marry each other.

Taken as a whole, Europe’s share of world output is projected to fall by almost a third in the next two decades. This is the competitiveness challenge – and much of our weakness in meeting it is self-inflicted. Complex rules restricting our labour markets are not some naturally occurring phenomenon.

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

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

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 went to a very posh school, I had a very privileged upbringing with parents who were incredibly loving and brilliant. I’ve never tried to hide that; I’m not going to change my accent or talk in a different way.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Whether you either passionately think we should stay in, or on balance think we should stay in, or on a balance of risks think we should stay in – for heaven’s sake get out and vote in, because you might wake up and find out you’re out.

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.

You do not have to be an economist to know that putting up the cost of employing someone is a pretty barking thing to do when you’re trying to get out of a recession.

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.

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.

You don’t have to be a brilliant historian to know that in Europe, messing with countries’ borders, messing with their self-determination, their ability to choose their own futures, this is extremely dangerous, and that’s why I think it is important to stand up to Putin.

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.

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.