When I was growing up, I was lucky to benefit from a first class education.

My pledge to you is that the SNP will put women and gender equality right at the heart of the Westminster agenda.

True gender equality in Scotland - and elsewhere - is still some way off.

I'm manifestly not the same as Alex Salmond. I'm a different gender, for example... I'm being flippant, but maybe this is a partly gender-driven difference: I'm very keen that we find a way of reaching out across party divides to find things we agree on, as well as the things we disagree on.

Whether it is through stock-market trading or the sale of hotel rooms, the Internet has a way of bringing deflationary forces to all businesses that were hitherto inefficient and involved many middlemen.

Transactional politics requires us to be pragmatic about current realities and the state of public opinion. It's all about getting the best result possible given the circumstances here and now.

I like Canada for a number of reasons, politics and people and all that stuff aside. I was raised there, and I write music best when I'm in situations that I'm surrounded by nature, and when there's seasons.

Democracy relies on free speech. Yes, say anything you want, but it relies even more on the speech being truthful. It is the truth, after all, that sets us free.