Just as I believe that Britain should want to remain in the EU so the EU should want us to stay.

My question right now would be to Colonel Gaddafi, which is: 'What on earth do you think you are doing? Stop it.'

In a global race, can we really justify the huge number of expensive peripheral European institutions? Can we justify a commission that gets ever larger? Can we carry on with an organisation that has a multibillion pound budget but not enough focus on controlling spending and shutting down programmes that haven't worked?

Today the main, over-riding purpose of the European Union is different: not to win peace, but to secure prosperity.

We need to have a bigger and more significant role for national parliaments. There is not, in my view, a single European demos.

If we are going to try to get across to the poorest people in the world that we care about their plight and we want them to join one world with the rest of us, we have got to make promises and keep promises.

I have no time for those who say there is no way Scotland could go it alone. I know first-hand the contribution Scotland and Scots make to Britain's success - so for me there's no question about whether Scotland could be an independent nation.