NICOLA Sturgeon has faced scrutiny from the mainstream media and MPs every week at First Minister's Questions but what would an eight-year-old ask her?

That became a reality for Tom Megaughin, when the First Minister agreed to an interview on his YouTube channel, Tom in Edinburgh.

Tom who is now 10, asked Sturgeon all sorts of pressing questions like how she got interested in politics, the best and worst thing about being First Minister, who she would most like to meet and why she's scared of dogs.

Introducing the interview, Tom says: "You've read about her on the newspaper and watched her on TV and if you're lucky seen her out and about but what do we really know about her? I mean does she run the Daily Mile [an initiative that sees children run for 15 minutes every day], what's her favourite thing in Scotland and, most importantly, does she really like haggis and Irn Bru?"

Sturgeon said the best thing about being First Minister is "getting to meet lots of people" and learn about what matters to them.

She said "usually the people you like meeting best tend not to be very famous and they tend to be most exciting" but said she would love to meet Michelle Obama.

The First Minister said if she could change one thing in Scotland right now it would be to eradicate child poverty. "If I could wave a magic wand and make something right immediately, that's what it would be," she added.

Speaking about how the interview came about, Tom's mum Annette, said: "We just wrote to the Parliament and to the FM’s email to ask, and they got back and said yes. So Tom got to skip school (happy boy) and meet Nicola. She couldn’t have been more lovely, and Tom was allowed to ask anything he wanted.

"He is not at all intimidated by meeting famous people which helps."

Sturgeon said Tom is "a great interviewer" and should become a journalist when he's older but his mum says he's not sure what he wants to do.

"First he wanted to be a helicopter rescue pilot, then a YouTuber (don’t they all?) and now he is not sure. He also does a bit of acting, loves dancing, swimming, etc and really likes doing his videos," she says.

Tom started his YouTube channel when he was seven "to do videos on things to see and do with kids in Edinburgh", Annette says.

There are videos about events at Edinburgh Zoo, Royal Yacht Britannia, Craigmillar Castle, horse riding and sledging at Ben Nevis but Tom plans to expand the videos with more interviewing.

"After we interviewed some of the stars at the Baftas in Glasgow and got to interview Jason Manford when he did Chitty in Edinburgh, we expanded it with celebrity interviews," she added.

Future interviews include videos with Jason Manford, Tom Daley, Steve Backshall and Cressida Cowell.