If feminism was a dress, it would be that essential little black number, reached for in times of need; different for everyone but a steady constant in a woman's life. Outspoken or understated, demure or provocative, worn to reflect the mood, the personality, the time.
My dissertation focused on the character traits and personality types of successful women.
I work with a host of amazing women who act as role models, who give their spare time freely to encourage these girls to give things a go, to reach out and take a chance and to explain that should they fail, well that's just a part of life.
We have seen a shift in the focus of education before entering the workplace, with earning and learning the new norm.
It is only by giving people the tools to empower themselves will they be able to achieve their potential.
Not only does work experience provide the opportunity to sample a potential career, but it also builds the essential skills often regarded as 'soft skills' that are needed to thrive in work.
Everyone deserves the chance to make their own choices. The first step on this pathway is experiencing the working world.
Labour parades compassion for the poor, but it practised casual cruelty by consigning millions to benefits. Yet there's nothing compassionate about being trapped on benefits, being robbed of the dignity of work, and shut out from the choices that brings.
Labour's disastrous legacy and the Conservative success did not happen by accident: it was about the choices each party made, choices that impact on everyone.
Every Labour government has left office with higher unemployment than when it entered.
I'm forever being told, and intrinsically understand, that people want to study at different times in their lives, often inspired to do so when they see the practical benefits of their studies.
Top performers in their fields such as Debbie Moore, Jean-Christophe Novelli, Deborah Meaden and Jo Malone, did not go to university and are just a handful of the individuals who show that with drive and determination, you can succeed by treading your own path.
When I speak to young people around the country, I'm impressed with the confidence and self-assuredness with which they look to the future and the range of options they consider beyond traditional routes.
Life teaches you it's not where you come from, it's where you get to, and work is exactly the same.
We all have dreams, whether it be about success in our careers, improving our relationship with family and friends, or sorting out our finances.
The government should only have one voice so the country knows what we stand for, so the world knows what we stand for.
If that is your route, to go to university and get a job that way, that is fantastic.
If your route is that you are practically minded, and that is what presses your button, and you do an apprenticeship and you get a job that way, that is fantastic.
That is what we should be doing: liberating everyone's potential, whether it's a self-made individual, whether it's someone taking the university route, whether it's the apprenticeship route. They are all equal and good and worthwhile.
My friends have always known there was this more serious side to me, and all my life, I've had Conservative values.
