The thing is, what most people don't understand is that there are so many of us growing up in Europe who are not free to be ourselves. We're not allowed to be who we are. We are not free to marry or to be in relationships with people that we choose. We can't even pick our own career. This is the norm in the Muslim heartlands of Europe.

We need to defend principles like democracy, freedom of speech, gender equality, and the rule of law through exemplifying these on a global scale, not through the same cynical, isolationist policies which have eroded these so-called 'British' values across the rest of the world.

I know some women's rights activists have seen so much abuse that they can't stand men, but I have a sense of empathy with the men. Without excusing the abuse they are capable of, many of them are trapped within these communities and bound by expectations they didn't necessarily ask for.

Women's empowerment, whether through legal, financial, or cultural routes, will tend to increase their agency and their ability to take part in activism.

Democracy is liberty - a liberty which does not infringe on the liberty nor encroach on the rights of others; a liberty which maintains strict discipline, and makes law its guarantee and the basis of its exercise. This alone is true liberty; this alone can produce true democracy.

We believe that government in Britain should be working to restore our reputation on the international stage after Iraq and engage better within Europe.

The last time I saw Ted Kennedy was a generation after my first meeting, at the Senate subway below the Capitol on Obama's Inauguration Day. He was his usual gregarious and gracious self - with beaming smile and booming voice wishing my husband and me good luck with our pregnancy and expressing his excitement about the new president.

We cannot ever accept a government that thinks they can get away with tiny targets on climate which they then don't achieve.