Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon PCis a Scottish politician who is the fifth and current First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the Scottish National Party, in office since 2014. She is the first woman to hold either position. Sturgeon has been a member of the Scottish Parliament since 1999, first as an additional member for the Glasgow electoral region from 1999 to 2007, and as the member for Glasgow Southside since 2007...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth19 July 1970
CityIrvine, Scotland
Poverty is on the increase - due to welfare cuts - and demand for food banks has rocketed.
An independent Scotland could afford pensions full stop - after all, it is our taxes and national insurance contributions that fund them now.
Any politician or campaigner trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public won't get very far.
It still annoys me when I read really derogatory things about how a woman looks because you would usually not read these things about a man, and that still has the potential to put women off public life.
I am a believer in people succeeding on merit.
English businesses would face massive transaction costs if Scotland, their second biggest export market, used a different currency.
One of Ed Miliband's shadow ministers has said he would never vote for the renewal of Trident.
The debate around the ageing population should, in my view, focus much more on how we grow the active, working population.
American companies based in Scotland employ large numbers of people - in fact, we are the best performing part of the U.K., outside London and the southeast of England when it comes to attracting foreign direct investment.
As a young woman in politics, with few women around, you start to subconsciously behave like men in politics. That comes across as quite hard, tough and humorless, but you're trying to be taken seriously.
I think you should always aim for more.
Labour long ago realised it could no longer automatically assume that it would win elections in Glasgow and other places where it has taken people's votes for granted for decades - as we have seen across Scotland at local council and Holyrood elections.
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.
It is hard to overstate the economic importance of the U.S.A. to Scotland, and that makes it essential that we engage with companies and potential investors and get the message across that we are open for business.