There is not, in my view, a single European demos.
The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy. In its long history Europe has experience of heretics who turned out to have a point.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The economy is the start and end of everything. You can't have successful education reform or any other reform if you don't have a strong economy.
The EU must be able to act with the speed and flexibility of a network, not the cumbersome rigidity of a bloc. We must not be weighed down by an insistence on a one size fits all approach which implies that all countries want the same level of integration. The fact is that they don't and we shouldn't assert that they do.
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.
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?'
It is so important for European countries, post-Second World War, to prove that they can be successful multiethnic and multiracial democracies. I think we in Britain have had great success in avoiding the hatreds and prejudices of the past.
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.
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.
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.
What we have seen with Islamist extremism, whether it is in Mali or Somalia or Afghanistan, is that the disease is not necessarily the individual country. The disease is the Islamist extremism, and that's what we have to fight; that's the narrative that we have to beat.
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.
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.
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 would be heartbroken if I ever thought that people in the Jewish community thought that Britain was no longer a safe place for them.
