My biggest ambition is to bring together what happens in the real world with what politicians talk about.

My working life has always been wrapped up in doing my job to the best of my abilities and doing the best for my family. It is not a contest between the two.

I love hard political debate and I love beating somebody on a political point but what I'm more frustrated by is the politics where you play the man not the politics.

The Scottish Labour Party, while I have breath in my body, will listen to the views of trade unionists.

Scotland cannot be the only 'something for nothing' country in the world.

Progressive politics is not something to be bolted on to another cause.

If I have learned one thing in life, it is never to take any man's own estimate of himself. He could very well be mistaken.