Being out and about talking to residents and representing their views is in my view as important to politics as the grandstanding that takes place in Westminster.

The Labour party has done more than any other to address gender inequalities through legislation and other means and to increase women's representation in politics which has led to recent increases in the number of female politicians.

I am a part of the political process whether the multinational forces are present or not. Politics is serving the people not chairs and positions.

Whatever your supposed politics are - left right - if you put it in a human connection most people will rise to the occasion and feel the human pain in a way that they might not if it was presented in a more conceptual way.

With participation in politics so low at the moment I think Christians should ensure their views are represented at all levels and not leave it to others.

At present our country needs women's idealism and determination perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.

Politics is for the present but an equation is for eternity.

The more I see of the representatives of the people the more I admire my dogs.

America's present need is not heroics but healing not nostrums but normalcy not revolution but restoration.

What does that represent? There was never any question in plastic art in poetry in music of representing anything. It is a matter of making something beautiful moving or dramatic - this is by no means the same thing.