We certainly want those at the top to do well but if you base your entire presidency and your entire economic platform on helping them do even better you're missing what makes the economy tick. Because not everyone has been as fortunate as Mitt Romney you cannot base your whole approach on a life experience as rarified as his.

There's full consensus in the military that women shouldn't be in person-to-person combat. I don't know if we have enough experience to know whether this is the right approach. But women can be elsewhere. We have mandatory military service in Chile. I pushed for women in all areas.

Given that religious faith is an intrinsic element of human experience it is best to approach and engage the subject with a sense of history and a critical sensibility.

I am totally against the idea that a Muslim woman should not have the same opportunities as a Muslim man to learn to open up to work help shape the future. To close Islam down to a sexist approach is totally intolerable and ridiculous. It's not Islam.

There are more effective ways of tackling environmental problems including global warming proliferation of plastics urban sprawl and the loss of biodiversity than by treaties top-down regulations and other approaches offered by big governments and their dependents.

A fascinating challenge facing today's environmental movement is how to best approach the reversal of past decisions that altered once-pristine environmental spaces for the sake of urgent man-made needs.

We created the Cabinet Committee on the Environment to review the environmental implications of all government initiatives. I think what made us successful was the fact that it was a sustained approach. We did something new every year.

The big shift in approach on education that we are taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads.

What we're doing now is we're saying that individual schools can spend the money on their own priorities so that head teachers can decide what's truly important because the big shift in approach on education that we're taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads.

I worry whether it's not really the best way to live one's life - trying to fulfill the dreams you had as a child. Maybe it's quite a backwards approach.