An independent Scotland - like all countries - will face challenges, and we will have our ups and downs. But the decisions about how we use our wealth will be ours.

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

There can be no greater privilege in life than to be chosen to lead your country.

Any politician or campaigner trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public won't get very far.

The assumption that people sometimes make is that I have made a cold, calculated decision to put my career ahead of having family, and that's not true.

Voting Labour in the past hasn't protected Scotland against Tory governments.

One of Ed Miliband's shadow ministers has said he would never vote for the renewal of Trident.

Sometimes things happen in life, sometimes they don't. Don't get me wrong: I have no regrets - if I could turn the clock back 10 or 20 years, I wouldn't want to fundamentally change the path my life has taken.

Taxing people for having a spare bedroom and forcing them into rent arrears or the possibility of losing homes they have lived in for years has always been a cruel and heartless measure, and so it is good that the Scottish Parliament has been able to step in.

I drove my mum and dad mad.

The fact is that co-operation between independent countries - to our mutual advantage - is the way of the modern world.

Governments in countries across the world have a duty to do everything possible to keep the public safe from terrorist attacks.

I'm a politician, and as you know, politicians are rarely very funny.

Not once in my life has the Tory Party come anywhere close to winning an election in Scotland, and yet, for more than half my life, we have had a Tory government. That is wrong and undemocratic.

Clearly, any issues about breaching of expenses rules should be properly investigated.

It is one of the little known facts about modern Scottish politics that it is not quite as cut-throat as people think it is.

U.K. welfare cuts are pushing more children into poverty; that is beyond dispute.

Scotland's relationship with Malawi is perhaps unique - with almost every town or village in Scotland having some connection.

If your pal or neighbour is in the SNP, you're more likely to listen to them than if you just turn on the telly and see me or Alex. The growth of membership is building a politically engaged community base that hasn't been there in my lifetime.

Parties that win elections should form the government, not parties that lose elections.

Of course, aid is only one small part of international development. Some of the greatest benefits to the world's poorest can be achieved through policy changes by developed countries.

What a war in Iraq will not do is bring about peace in the Middle East or end the injustices that feed resentment and breed terrorists.

Haggis is delicious. It is wonderful. It's spicy, it's tasty, and you get vegetarian haggis as well.

There's nothing in my background that would have said I was destined to be a senior politician.