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.

Government has to be cut back like asparagus... every day... or it gets away and goes to seed. Ours did. When there's too much of it, the flower becomes a weed.

Nigeria shed the last of a succession of brutal military dictatorships in 1997 and adopted a democratic form of government only in 1999. Our elections of 2003, 2007, and 2011 were complicated and fraught with tension, but each one has shown remarkable progress.

Government needs to get out of the way, focus more on affordability, manage taxes properly so we get the services we expect.

I hate big government; I hate being told what to do on a personal basis.