Democracy demands trust. It demands that sense of mutual understanding. And - it's a two way street. You've got to give - as much as you take.

Like John Major in her wake, Thatcher was convinced that she understood the Scots - yet couldn't understand why we remained so stubbornly resistant towards the notion of understanding her.

The way to defeat international terrorism is through international cooperation based on international law, clear intelligence, and a measured and appropriate military response.

As a Scot, representing a Scottish constituency for almost the past 25 years, I do not harbour an overweening ambition to pronounce on each and every matter exclusively English.

New Mexico is 2-to-1 Democrat. I got elected as a Republican. I think I did a great job of showing people that government doesn't have to spend money to make you happy, that government really needs to be providing a level playing field.

A lot of people say that India has been held back by its democracy. But let's remember that, despite being a poor country, India's democracy meant that its government never let millions of people starve.

Thinking ahead, in 2013, the Japanese government, together with pharmaceutical companies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established a fund for promoting research and development of medical products for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). The importance of planning for disease outbreaks was made clear with the Ebola virus.

Jesus taught that we should give to the poor and support widows, but he never said that we should elect a government that would take money from our neighbor's hand and give it to the poor.