In My Job I Meet Many Outstanding,

Small- And Medium-sized Businesses Need Access To A Diverse Range Of Finance Options, Including Non-bank Lending. These New Forms Of Finance Are Still Small In Scale Today But They Should, Over Time, Bring Additional Choice And Greater Competition To The Lending Market.

The Two Policies That Ken Clarke Is Most Famous For Are His Opposition To The Iraq War And Being A Very Defensible And Quite Courageous Pro-european. These Are Both Policies He Shares With Us.

Well, As I Said, You Know The Issue Of Greek Debt, They've Grasped The Principle Of Debt Reduction. I Think Most People Would Argue That Probably More Needs To Be Done On That Front, And They've Just Begun To Take The First Steps To Accepting That There's Going To Have To Be Much Closer Economic Integration In Europe.

The Fact That John Prescott Is Being Paid Large Sums Of Money To Do Little Or Nothing Adds To The General Malaise Surrounding This Government And The Feeling That Ministers Are Incapable Of Tackling Serious Issues.

We Need A New British Business Bank With A Clean Balance Sheet And An Ability To Expand Lending Rapidly To The Manufacturers, Exporters And High-growth Companies That Power Our Economy. Today I Can Announce We Will Have One.