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The Foreign Office is a very important arm of the British state and I think Britain has a fantastic diplomatic service. We are the only country in the world spending 2% of our national income on defence and 0.7% of our national income on aid. We are the only country in the world doing both of those things.

George Osborne

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George Osborne
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: May 23
British Politician
Economist
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Journalist
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Writer
George Gideon Oliver Osborne
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More quotes by George Osborne

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We want people to have a stake in the British economy so I am in favour of actually encouraging people to have small shareholdings and feel they've got a stake in our economic future.
George Osborne
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I get a lot of letters from people.
George Osborne
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Britain cannot afford to cut itself off from what is going on in the world, we are too interconnected with what is going on, we have a powerful history and tradition of taking an interest in what is going on in the world, we've also got a very real interest in the future, in remaining connected.
George Osborne
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There is a big problem. The problem is the country borrowed too much. We went on a borrowing binge, there was a housing boom. You want to help people de-leverage and deal with those debts over time.
George Osborne
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What I'm interested in is Britain projecting itself abroad, and through that its values and the things it holds dear. And I don't think you do that by refusing to talk to the world's second-largest economy [China]. In fact, that is positively counter-productive in my view.
George Osborne
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The British people think that if someone is disabled, then they should get all the care and support that we can offer.
George Osborne
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I think we woefully failed to connect Britain to the growing Chinese economy in the previous decade, and I have sought to remedy that. China is now the sixth biggest trading partner with the UK. We have attracted now the lion's share of Chinese investment that is going into Europe.
George Osborne
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We have supported the banks, they should be supporting the economy now.
George Osborne
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I would say I have taken substantive action to make things easier for people.
George Osborne
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There are those who are trying to create an anti-business culture in Britain - and we have to stop them. At stake are not pay packages for a few but jobs and prosperity for the many.
George Osborne
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The Conservative Party mustn't sound like the old man on the park bench who says things were better in 1985, or 1955, or 1855.
George Osborne
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Well British pension funds have not been investing the savings of British people in British infrastructure.
George Osborne
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I want Britain to be a global financial centre but I want it to be properly regulated.
George Osborne
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No other chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people he has the political will to implement his own Budget.
George Osborne
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You also want to look at how the tax system encourages and rewards pension saving. I have set as an ambition reversing the effects of Gordon Brown's tax raid which heralded the beginning of the age of responsibility. We are looking at some very specific tax measures on how we can encourage saving.
George Osborne
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What makes people angry and we are on the side of hard-working people who want to get on in life and they see how government is wasting their money.
George Osborne
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What's interesting is whilst Shanghai has gone stellar - literally, in these massive buildings which have appeared since I first visited - Beijing has become a much more vibrant and interesting place. A lot more business is done here.
George Osborne
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Britain has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world.
George Osborne
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Put on top of that the fact that the whole world is looking at Britain and saying how is this country going to pay its way in the future. They are looking at other countries like Greece who can't pay their way in the future and you see savage spending cuts, big cuts in pay.
George Osborne
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We should be looking at putting a limit on the interest that can be charged on things like store cards.You don't want to end up with totally draconian credit controls but you want some common sense. We want cooling-off periods for store cards so people can't take them out and go straight to the counter and buy things.
George Osborne