A nation which is ignorant of its history cannot properly make choices about its future. - Alex Salmond

The SNP's commitment to a Bill of Rights and written constitution means that we will outlaw any discrimination but we also have to eradicate it from the dark recesses of the Scottish psyche. We also have to speak out against institutionalised discrimination. For example, it is a scandal of some considerable proportions that no Catholic can sit on the throne, or marry the heir to the throne -- an attitude entrenched in law that belongs to the archaic arrangements of the eighteenth century, not the bright prospects of the twenty-first.

Those are the objectives - competence, consensus and vision - against which we should be judged. Of course that judgement could come earlier if the opposition parties wished to force an election!

I respect the view of every Scot and every person living in Scotland. And I do so with a clear sense of my own responsibility to lead change and to argue for what I believe is in the Scottish national interest.