The SNP became a minority government in 2007, then a majority one in 2011. But Labour viewed what was happening as some kind of aberration. They felt the problem wasn't theirs: they didn't have to change; the Scottish people had just gone down this wrong road, and if they waited long enough, they would find their way back.

I take responsibility for everything that happens in the SNP as leader.

Scotland never voted for Margaret Thatcher.

I know you've got to earn people's trust, and you've got to earn it day after day after day.

I feel comfortable in a position of leadership, but that's not to say I feel complacent about it. I take it incredibly seriously.

At these big set-piece events like the leaders' debates, that exterior of calm and serenity is nothing compared to what's going on inside most of the time.

I love talking to the public, I love hearing what people have got to say.

I've had particularly unpleasant stuff, and it has been reported that I've had death threats. Twitter and Facebook give people who have always been out there a platform from which to hurl abuse, and all I can do is try to block it out and remind myself that tweets are transient and get lost in the ether after a few moments.

I'm the leader of the SNP. I think you would expect me to say I would vote SNP in whatever constituency I lived in.

Many people from many different walks of life have marriages that break up, and those are deeply personal, deeply painful but ultimately private matters.

I feel sorry for generations of Labour voters and supporters who must look and wonder what on earth has gone wrong and what Labour is for.

I'm manifestly not the same as Alex Salmond. I'm a different gender, for example... I'm being flippant, but maybe this is a partly gender-driven difference: I'm very keen that we find a way of reaching out across party divides to find things we agree on, as well as the things we disagree on.

I'm not making any secret of the fact I still believe in independence. We'll continue to argue the case.

Our MPs will take decisions on how they're voting on a day-to-day basis. But I'm the leader of the party, and in terms of our overall strategy and how we vote on key issues, then ultimately, those decisions will be mine.

Our opposition to Trident is very clear, very firm, very long-standing, very principled, and we would seek to build an alliance to prevent the renewal of Trident.

I admire Obama.

I think the Tories are doing - and are intent on doing - damage to things I hold dear.

I want there to be another independence referendum at some stage. I want Scotland to be independent, but I wouldn't choose to have it happen because England votes to come out of the E.U.

Maybe its time for politicians to fight back a little bit in terms of this notion that politicians are all in it for themselves, we're all the same, we're not driven by sincere motives. Because the fact of the matter is the vast majority are.

Most politicians come into politics because they want to make a difference; we just have different ideas how to do it.

We will never vote for the renewal of Trident; that's a decision which will fall to be made in the next Westminster parliament. We will never vote for that.

I don't know Ed Miliband as a person particularly well.

Tory governments are bad for Scotland.

I don't feel we need to be independent for me to feel confident in my Scottish identity. I think Scotland is pretty comfortable in its identity. We won't need independence to preserve it... if we don't become independent, it won't disappear; it isn't under existential threat.

Don't worry about fitting in - it's completely over-rated.

It's satisfying to watch a story where you feel like you're a fly on the wall.

My dad always jokes that if I ever write an autobiography, which I'm not going to, it'll be called 'It's Tough in the Middle.'

I live in dread that I might find myself in some sort of emergency, and everyone will turn to me and expect me to know what the correct procedures are.

Before I had my son, I became obsessed by this painting I'd seen in an art gallery. It was a lot of money, but I felt such a rush of adrenaline when I wrote the cheque to buy it. I thought I was going to gaze lovingly at it forever, but after just two weeks, I realised I didn't really like it any more.

I was never told that the purpose of school was to get a job at the end of it. What was pushed on me was a love of learning, probably because my parents didn't have access to a great education.

It always makes me laugh to think that I get to sit around and chat with people like Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi and get paid for it.

I started when I was 21, and it was always about getting the next job - like most actors, that's all it's ever been for me.

When I bought my first little flat, it was two bedrooms, so I got Sarah Phelps to live with me. My years-later-to-be husband was slightly thinking, 'Why are you inviting your friends to live with you?' I was very resistant to leaving my friends.

It's now become a joke in my family that as soon as I finish a job, I'm on a loop saying, 'I'm never going to work again' - it drives everyone mad!

I'm a hoarder, but then, when it all gets too much, I turn into a ruthless chucker. I'm very good at clearing out and giving stuff away. But I'm equally skilled at shoving things in a cupboard, shutting the door, and calling that 'cleared up.'

I'm a proper Essex girl because my family was part of that great exodus from the East End.

There wasn't really anything I wanted to do other than acting, which is ridiculous because there were no actors in my family, and we didn't know anything about acting.

I don't really have a treasured possession, but I do love my family's proper old photo album. We all have hundreds of photos on our phones now, but you can't beat the old albums stuffed with black-and-white wedding photographs and 1970s Polaroids.

I completely respect the job our police do.

'The Split' is actually really hopeful - although it's left me reeling slightly, thinking about what we do to each other in the name of love, within the contract of marriage.

I'm married to a vegetarian, so if ever we go out to dinner, I go for kidneys.

My two girlfriends from university, Sue Perkins and Sarah Phelps, are both in the business - and are both stupidly busy. We talk on the phone a lot and try to get out to dinner together, but our preferred venue is one of our kitchens with a lot of tea.

I don't have a preferred medium of work, but like all actors, I do like to move from one to the other if possible.

At home, people very rarely recognise me.

The people I've met who are divorce lawyers, there's a sense of them having to look reassuringly expensive.

I am very good at keeping secrets, except when I am drunk, when I will tell you absolutely anything.

The generation before me certainly told me that there would come a point when there were fewer parts, telling me to make hay while the sun shone. There was a time in my late thirties when I thought that it was something I had to get myself ready for, that things were going to slow down as I hit 40.

When I look back at the Nineties, I realise there wasn't very much TV I wanted to do.

I've always had a resting expression that either makes me look deep in thought or as though I'm about to fight you. I've lost count of the number of directors asking me what the problem is when all I'm doing is sitting still and being.

I'd really like to play Lady Macbeth.