Today’s column is very personal. I think by now most people know that I am a lesbian. I didn’t come into politics with the purpose of defending the rights of lesbians. Indeed, I never really wanted to make an issue of my sexuality, but events have meant that I have had no choice. My purpose in entering elected politics was to achieve independence for my country. I honestly thought that would be the fight of my life. 

Instead, while that struggle seems somewhat becalmed at present, I find myself in the fight of my life defending the sex-based rights of women and girls and the rights of me and my lesbian sisters to be who we are and to organise around the protected characteristic of our same-sex orientation. 

Although Westminster went into a 3-day recess at close of business on Tuesday, media coverage of recent events there continues to be frenzied. Don’t be fooled by the feeding of Sir Geoffrey Cox to the lions - he’s been Boris Johnson’s scapegoat before, during the prorogation crisis. And I’m sure readers of the National saw the drunk & disorderly smear against two of my SNP colleagues for what it was. 

The real scandal here is not MPs who have outside interests or second jobs away from parliament but MPs who are being paid by corporate interests to use their influence as MPs to try to change government policy to the benefit of those corporations. It’s called corruption. And it’s rife on the Tory benches. 

For all the criticisms it has been very exciting to watch the world come to Glasgow this week to discuss the most pressing issue we face. Despite the best efforts of the UK Government, Scotland has not been side-lined. The FM has succeeded in attracting the attention of the world’s media, and grassroots initiatives from Scots have flourished on the fringes of the COP. It has been a reminder that Scotland has the potential to take our rightful place on the world stage, if only we think big and expand our horizons with confidence.  

Everyone agrees an independent Scotland should have a written constitution. The only real debate is about how it should be drawn up and who should do that. 

At the SNP conference in September Mike Russell announced that he wants to have a transitional constitution in place next year, ready for the indyref promised in 2023. There was some criticism. What Mike seemed to be envisaging was a constitution drawn up by a panel of self-selected experts albeit in consultation with the wider Yes movement. Lesley Riddoch argued that the job is too big for one party or even one side of the constitutional debate and that the task of framing the constitution should be handed over to the people. I agree with Lesley, but the difficulty is there may not be time to do that before 2023.