The depth of concern people feel about UKIP is not always matched by depth of understanding.

Historically, Labour has used technology as a form of control. We would use pagers and faxes to send out messages telling people what line to take. The key learning from the Obama campaign is to use technology to empower your supporters.

In sport, as in science, business, and diplomacy, as Scots we understand that we benefit from the deep and diverse partnerships that make up the United Kingdom.

Traditionally, diplomacy was done in an environment of information scarcity. Ambassadors would send back telegrams to foreign ministries, comfortable in the knowledge that their views of a country would be the only source of information the minister would see.

We must remember that politics is more than a power game. The core of politics in my view is to serve our citizens, to serve our fellow human beings.

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

In policy arena after policy arena, Democrats respond to every failure of clunky government by proposing the addition of still more layers to 1960s-era bureaucracies as they break down.

I used to make training films for the U.S. government. I was always cast as a madman or a prisoner. I once played a prisoner who was holding himself hostage with a razor blade.