I've never been interested in self-promotion and that side of politics; and if that means people judge that you're less prominent than others, that's a choice I've been willing to make.

Of course we need to show we are a genuine alternative to an unpopular, Conservative-led government. But we need to set ourselves a higher standard than a party offering anger like UKIP.

Scotland and England may sometimes be rivals, but by geography, we are also neighbours. By history, allies. By economics, partners. And by fate and fortune, comrades, friends and family.

I take UKIP very seriously. The truth is that UKIP presents an electoral challenge to all political parties. The way to defeat UKIP is not to be a better UKIP but to be a better Labour Party.

My vision for Scotland is one in which we fight together for the values we are care about: equality, fairness and social justice. Those values are the same whether you live in Dumfries or Carlisle.

Labour's task for government is to build consent for an outward-looking Britain as the best way to advance not just our interests, but also our values at a time of challenge, both at home and abroad.

I'm at one with Ed Miliband in saying that it's important that people have the right to express their democratic voices and also their deep concerns about climate change because we have a planet in peril.

A self-evidently confident politician, Cameron still suffers from a curious hollowness. Ten years after he became Conservative leader, many people still question what he actually stands for or believes in.

If Nick Clegg hadn't been sitting around the cabinet table, we wouldn't have had the bedroom tax; we wouldn't have had the rise in tuition fees. We wouldn't have had the mistakes we've seen in economic policy.

Just as people have long believed that strengthening ties of trade improves the prospects for peace and the free exchange of ideas, Facebook friendships or Twitter followings already transcend national borders.

If you're part of the Network Generation, you don't have to belong just to one nation. Dual identities come easily to these dual screeners. They fear a separate Scotland would be a narrowing, not a broadening, experience.

One of the big weaknesses of the Conservative Party is not just their ignorance of and lack of effective response to the cost-of-living crisis but a more fundamental error about what makes for success in the 21st century.

In an era of billion-person countries and trillion-pound economies, we need to find ways to amplify our voice. We are most likely to be heard when the Chinese negotiate with a £10 trillion E.U., not a £1.5 trillion Britain.

It seems to me that the Conservatives neither recognise the scale of the living standards crisis facing British families nor offer credible answers as to how the British economy or British society can be better in the future.

It would be wrong for us to offer difference from the Conservative Party at the cost of credibility, but equally it would be wrong to offer credibility at the cost of being clear that there remain very fundamental differences.

Of course the decision to commit British forces in Iraq was, for many MPs, a wrenching choice. However, our responsibility in the face of a growing ISIS threat is not to be paralysed by history, but to learn the correct lessons from it.

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.

Part of the reason I am so evangelical in our campaigning work is that I had an unshakeable faith in Labour values, but we needed a machine worthy of the message. I grew up with a peerless Conservative machine, with vastly superior resources.

It is already clear that, because of advances in technology, drones are going to play an increased role in warfare in the years ahead. It is therefore vital that the legal frameworks governing their use are robust and internationally recognised.

As Scots - like everyone else - we live in an increasingly inter-connected world that demands shared solutions to shared problems. Walking away from others have never been our way. Walking with others has been our heritage and still represents our best future.

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.

Too often, the idea seemed to be that the cost of being part of Europe was being less like Britain. So after years of fighting to defend Europe against attacks from the Eurosceptic right, it would be fatal to retreat into the same arguments and begin the battle anew.

This Network Generation have grown up in a connected world. With Skype, Facebook, Twitter and the Internet, the world is at their fingertips via their smart phone. They find the idea of watching TV programmes at a time to suit the broadcaster quaint and old-fashioned.

The Government have consistently made it clear that the mechanism in the United Kingdom whereby the European draft constitutional treaty could be implemented is approval by the House of Commons followed by a referendum of the people of Britain. There is no question of implementing it by the back door.

There's no doubt that what has emerged in the years after 9/11, unlike the situation in Britain, there were practices sanctioned in the U.S. that fall far below the standard of conduct that should have taken place. It is for the American system of government, in all of its branches, to address that. It is not for a British politician.

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