And think of how we challenged the idea of a male dominated Parliament with All-Women shortlists and made the cause of gender equality central to our government. We were right to do so.

I felt I could still make a contribution with ideas. I didn't know how, and it has taken me some time to work that out. There were things that mattered to me about the future of the country: inequality, what the post-financial crisis settlement would be. I still felt strongly about all that.

Remember, I'm the guy who didn't want the referendum - I wouldn't have had it if I'd been prime minister. But you have to respect how people voted because this was partly about political alienation, so if the response to political alienation is to ignore it, that's a recipe for more political alienation.

I don't believe in God personally but I have great respect for those people who do and different people have different religious views in this country.

Our children, manipulated to become exemplary consumers, increasingly admit they do not feel 'in control' of their own Internet use.

By playing on people's desire to belong to groups, Facebook creates a new, inclusive society. After all, Facebook is not like Harvard College. Anyone with access to the Internet can sign up.

I used to do my best thinking while staring out airplane windows. The seat-back video system put a stop to that. Now I sit and watch old' Friends' and 'Everybody Loves Raymond' episodes. Walking is good, but here again, technology has interfered. I like to listen to iTunes while I walk home. I guess I don't think anymore.

The critical thing in developing software is not the program, it's the design. It is translating understanding of user needs into something that can be realized as a computer program.