Natalie Bennett

Green Party leader

The fact is that quality, independent, varied media, in which a wide range of voices and public views can be heard, are essential for our democracy. Given our current problems with democracy, with sinking election turnouts and widespread disillusionment, this is an issue that cannot be ignored.

James Snell

Writer for Politiker UK and Contributing Editor for The Libertarian

The government spies on us: cue horror and massive public outrage. But is all of this really that surprising? After all, we expect our government to spy on foreigners who plot ill-will towards the nation, so why shouldn't we bear the same burdens as the rest of the world?

Alex Ford

Former Royal Air Force Airman, an instructor and technician, recently freed from military service and making his way as a writer and blogger in the civilian world

Soldiers may fight wars, but it is politicians who not only start them, the politicians getting around a table and talking also finish them. In a dirty and nasty war which has cost over 35,000 people's lives, the only real way to come out with a solution to the annual cycle of fighting is to discuss it.

Rob Hopkins

Co-founder of both Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network, author of the Power of Just Doing Stuff

Why is the city of Bristol printing its own money? Why have Brixton and Bath created their own energy companies? What's a local economy worth? And if we knew, how might it help us imagine an economy beyond austerity?

Joanne Nye

Managing Director at online fashion store www.glam-net.com

This year marks the centenary of famous Suffragette martyr Emily Wilding Davison's tragic death at the Epsom races. This event and the work of the Suffragette movement have made me stop to think about how far we women have come in the last 100 years and how much more there is to be done to help the next generation achieve success.

Philippa Warr

Arts and Entertainment Writer

Suicide is a permissive act. It serves as a demonstration of a possible solution or even a method of communication and, consciously or not, vulnerable people respond to it. The contagiousness of suicide is just one of the many reasons journalists have a responsibility to cover it responsibly.

Sheila Hageman

Author and mom of three

We have been raised in a society where the only women we see fighting the issues are those labeled as 'feminists' or 'fat' in a demeaning voice. The majority of admired female icons are supermodels in bathing suits adorning sports magazine covers in grocery stores.

Tom Walters

Exiled northerner, Smiths obsessive, student mentor and aspiring journalist

Journalism is an industry that relies on a depth of variation to ensure engaging and informative content. Journalism needs writers from all walks of life, all upbringings and from every part of the UK, not just the ones lucky enough to stay with an uncle in Richmond.

Gideon Burrows

Author of Men Can Do It: The Real Reason Dads Don't Do Childcare

It is worth us all remembering that mums are more likely to pursue and succeed with breastfeeding if the father is actively involved right from day one, and that baby-father bonds are stronger when dad plays a role.

The Guyliner

Taking on the internet one gay at a time

When he arrives, I'm totally at ease. I have no expectations; I'm just out for a drink. I'm just myself, whatever that is, and he can like it or lump it. It doesn't matter if I don't fancy him, right? It's a shock, then, to find myself warming to him almost immediately.

Tim Arnold

The Soho Hobo

These cats are hardcore stylists, but their roots are, like all the best tailors, in Savile Row. The difference is that they've all become rock stars by moving their trade to Soho. And it's right that Soho is the place where they have made their mark, because Soho is the world that encourages 'preservation of the individual'.

Karen Edwards

Karen is a Freelance Entertainment and Travel Journalist based in London

The world's second largest country in land mass, China has so much to offer the inquisitive traveller; neon-lit cities with huge shopping centres, sky-scrapers and a buzzing nightlife, hundreds of miles of arid desert, the subtropical rainforests and snow-capped Himalayan mountains

Ezra Tafari Rose

Founder of Kiss.My.Lisp

A week prior to my birthday an immediate family member, so repulsed by my lifestyle, threatened me with a ten-inch green handled screwdriver and banned his only child from communicating with me, insinuating that I would abuse him and was a present hazard to his and any other child. All of this is what now led me to vacillate over ticking the gay box when asked my sexual orientation in an application to facilitate child learning.

James Mumford

Senior Researcher, Centre for Social Justice

In 2011 the Centre for Social Justice conducted a telephone poll, the largest of its kind, of single occupants aged 75 and over. We found that nearly a quarter of a million people - a city the size of Brighton - were to spend Christmas day alone.

Iain Anderson

Director, Cicero

The most immediate question, of course, is: how much of the report will be implemented? The sweeping nature of the proposals, across criminal sanctions, accountability, remuneration, competition, governance and regulation means that even doing half of it would be a serious legislative undertaking.

Wendy Wason

Writer, comedian and world class procrastinator

I'm not sure if there is a cultural shift where it's ok to be demeaning to women or if it's just easier to access now. What I do know is that it is completely unacceptable. Now I'm far from a reluctant feminist. I'm a strident one.

Niall Couper

Press officer for Amnesty International, award-winning author and former journalist for The Independent

This is Romania. This is modern-day prejudice. This is the life of Europe's Roma community.
Today, Amnesty International publishes a new report called 'Pushed to the margins: Five stories of Roma forced evictions in Romania'... It paints a very bleak picture.

Poorna Bell

Lifestyle Editor Huffington Post UK

Vice magazine isn't the first to put out a tasteless shoot in the name of fashion and 'art', but considering suicide rates are steadily rising, it could start with a decent apology.

Rachael Akidi

Editor, BBC Focus on Africa radio

What do Ethiopia, Mozambique and Angola have in common? Well just under two decades ago, the stories that emerged from these three countries pretty much summed up the state of most of the African continent at the time. Two decades later, the same countries are not only in the news, but on every economic analyst's list.

John Worne

Director of Strategy, the British Council

Sharing culture is hard when you can't entertain another point of view, tough when you have to stick to your line, and impossible when what you say can immediately be turned into a headline and used as a stick to beat you. This is the lot of modern governments.