When I was a little girl, about eight, I remember going into the Body Shop - that was my first introduction to campaigning. There would always be a petition at the till about fair-trade or stop testing on animals, and the message was: get involved and make change.
Jo Swinson
With parenting, like any other skill in life, practice makes perfect.
I have no limits to my ambition for the Liberal Democrats.
We champion freedom - but Brexit will mean the next generation is less free to live, work and love across Europe.
The rise of populism has steadily coalesced movements of millions of people around its divisive us-against-them rhetoric, motivating so many more people to become active political campaigners and party members to champion the case for liberal democracy.
Every day we let this Brexit mess go on means less money being invested in the UK, fewer jobs being created and less tax revenue to pay for our public services.
For so many in the UK, the social contract is broken - the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules, you'll reap the rewards. Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence and other technologies are just as capable of fixing the social contract as they are to weaken it further.
But I don't feel that as a politician I'm hugely different. Obviously I have a different set of experiences that chime with experiences that many of my constituents have. I think I essentially still have the same set of values and the issues that are important to me don't seem to have changed hugely.
The piece of legislation that I'm so excited and delighted to be doing is shared parental leave.
I knock on lots of doors, but you don't reach everyone that way - Twitter is just one of many ways of keeping in touch.
My childhood was a mix of ballet classes and debating society. I liked arguing. As a teenager, I wanted to be an author. Later on, inspired by Young Enterprise and the Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, I decided I wanted to go into business.
We will never achieve equality in the workplace until we have more equality in the home. Our plans for an extra four weeks of parental leave specifically for fathers will help tackle the assumption that parenting is one of the 'girl jobs'.
By stopping Brexit, investing in skills and providing tailored support to key industries, we can get the UK economy back on track and help the communities that have been hit hardest by the threat of Brexit.
If we want a Parliament that understands people's lives when it takes decisions, it needs to be representative of society, which includes having MPs who are parents of small children - both mums and dads.
There are five main barriers to women entering politics - I like to think of them as the five Cs: cash, caring, culture, confidence, and the closed club.
Every January we see these fad diets promoted. These aren't promoting healthiness, these aren't promoting a way of embracing exercise and eating fruit and veg and doing things which will actually help people.
Far from the quick and easy exit that Leave campaigners once promised, Brexit has become mired in its own internal contradictions.
A book I often refer to by Naomi Klein is called 'No Is Not Enough'. It's not enough to be against something. You have to actually be for something. A better alternative. For me, that's about transformation.
You look at the sports pages and you'd often be forgiven for thinking women didn't do sport.
Shared parental leave is good for dads. Looking after their newborn on their own is a unique learning experience.
Whether it is throwing people under the bus or writing a lie on the side of one: Britain deserves better than Boris Johnson.
I'm perhaps not the most tribal of politicians. Working in a mature and adult way where you recognise what your shared goal is and you manage to work towards that... that is not something which I think would be particularly more difficult with Labour than it is with the Conservatives.
Two weeks into looking after a newborn, you don't necessarily feel as if you've got it all under control. It's just turned your life absolutely upside down, and I think there are a lot of parents who would feel that having the opportunity for both parents to be around in those early weeks would be something that would be really, really valuable.
While the problems facing the country are huge, it is in times of great disruption that we can make the most important changes to our society and help to rebuild our fractured, broken politics.
Since 2016 we've been campaigning to improve the rights of renters, especially those on low incomes who are being ripped off by stratospheric admin fees, which puts them at risk of homelessness.
As Minister for Women and Equalities, I introduced shared parental leave, extended flexible working rights and won government support to bring in gender pay gap reporting. I'm not going to lie: it was a constant battle.
Having studied politics doesn't necessarily give you political nous.
In the cut-throat political system we have in the UK, you have to be prepared to put your head above the parapet and be confident in your ability to get the job done.
I am so glad that as a party the Liberal Democrats are united in our resolve to fight for staying in the EU - it means we don't need to waste time on internal infighting.
I loved reading. I was one of those kids who was supposed to go to bed but had a torch under the duvet. That love of reading stayed with me.
I love Harriet Harman, she is a supporter of women of all parties, a kind word, a friendly voice, and this country is lucky to have her.
I joined the Lib Dem party at the Freshers' Fair at the London School of Economics.
I know as an aunt, you fall into the trap of turning to your niece and saying, 'you look beautiful' - because of course all children do look beautiful - but if the message they get is that is what's important and that is what gets praise, then that's not necessarily the most positive message you want them to hear.
I'm not supporting Jeremy Corbyn. If we are to have an election I would fight as Lib Dem leader as the party of remain that hasn't equivocated on this like Jeremy Corbyn.
I want to stay in the European Union which is the best trade deal we could possibly have, but we need to call out racism.
One of the things I love most about Lib Dem members is that for all our policy disagreements, we agree on why we're Lib Dems in the first place.
One of the initiatives I have pursued in Parliament has been to make it easier for the public to see what their MPs do in the House of Commons by removing the ban on Parliamentary filming appearing on YouTube or similar web sites.
My experience in government is there is a whole host of unintended consequences you have to think through. I can't un-know that, I find it harder now to offer simple solutions.
In Westminster, I make sure I maximise my ability to represent my constituents. I can do that in a variety of ways: by asking written questions or questions in the House of Commons, through the scrutiny of bills and by sitting on the environmental audit select committee every week, as well as other committees.
If your aim is to give practical, sensible advice about losing weight - and not how to drop a stone in five days - you should encourage reasonable expectations, instead of dangerous ones, along with exercise and healthy eating.
Publishing parental pay benefits will let employers show that they're family-friendly and enable them to better attract talent, potentially spurring on some very healthy competition.
There is, I think, far too much guilt generally in society around parenthood, about whether or not you breastfeed or whether or not you bottle feed. We know the evidence is very strong in favour of breastfeeding and the benefits of that, but it shouldn't mean we make people feel bad if they can't do that for some reason.
I want to lead the Liberal Democrats so that we can build a liberal movement to stand up to those nationalist forces and stop Brexit, then transform our broken economy so that it is focused on the long-term and works for both people and our planet, tackling poverty and averting climate crisis.
We need to achieve a change in the media and in the way women are pressured to conform to a narrow image of beauty - it's a lofty ambition but it's important to make a start.
A girl born in Drumchapel in Glasgow has just as much right to good health and the opportunities provided by a good education as a Surrey stockbroker's son.
London is a liberal city, in all senses of the word. It is a city built on the idea that the multitude of cultures that inhabit it are a benefit, not a curse, where communities from all over the globe live and work side by side, enriching each other's experiences.
Over the course of history, the answer to nationalism has been liberalism, and I believe it can be the answer again.
A researcher has to be able to identify key points and suggest intelligent questions.
I'm a massive feminist, but I think it's a little unfair on the other sex saying they're not in it to change the world.
Having a child is difficult enough already, bringing with it a whole range of wonderful challenges, and we shouldn't be trying to guilt parents into 'there is just one way to do it'.
