Vanessa Brown

Mature student at the University of Westminster

With home ownership fast becoming a distant dream for many young people entering the workplace, what I envisioned my life to be in my twenties is not what it turned out to be. Now at the age of 33, I find myself thinking of dishes, and how many I would need to wash in order to keep up with the rent on my in South London flat.

John Worne

Director of Strategy, the British Council

It's time to let go of the idea that English 'belongs' to anyone - let alone English speaking countries. "No way!" as the rest of the world regularly exclaims - after all far more people now speak English around the world as a second language than as their mother tongue.

Charlie Mullins

MD Pimlico Plumbers – UK’s biggest independent plumbers

The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) yesterday said that the UK will avoid a triple dip recession and I for one believe they are right on the money.

Alastair Roderick

Research Fellow at the Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems

I doubt that Camborne are curious enough to have contemplated the Marxist theory of alienation, which states that social problems arise from capitalism's pervertion of the natural relationship an individual has to their means of production.

Jack Bradshaw

Third year history student at the University of York; Online Editor of York Vision

Is a dash for gas the answer? Gas is the cleanest of the three fossil fuels and emits only half as much CO2 as coal. Estimates vary on the amount of shale gas available, but the consensus is that we have enough for over 100 years, supplying at least a quarter of our energy needs in that time.

Tessa Dunlop

Historian, Writer, Broadcaster

So-called liberal multi-cultural Britain is bullying one of the poorest countries in Europe. We have conveniently forgotten how far Romania has come in the last 23 years - from communist hell-hole to fledgling democracy.

Karren Brady

Businesswoman, Vice Chairman of West Ham FC and a LifeSkills Ambassador

The generation we need to inspire has never needed us more. The UK has experienced the fastest rise in youth unemployment of any country in the G8 since the start of the recession. Today, nearly one million young people are struggling to start careers or even find any work at all. At the same time, employers struggle to recruit entry-level candidates with the right skills. Last year, a staggering one in four businesses didn't recruit a single young person. The legacy of the Games will be failure if we don't create opportunities for this generation to be successful.

William Davie

Second-year journalism student at the University of Gloucestershire

The world wide web is supposed to be free. That's why Tim Berners-Lee never patented it. He didn't want to put it beyond the use of anyone. But that spirit of altruism makes it difficult for people who are hoping to make money from it.

Nick Beecroft

Senior Markets Analyst and Chairman at Saxo Capital Markets UK

Why is it that I always seem to have to write these pieces just before some binary event or other, usually of Eurozone origin, meaning that by Tuesday (in this case), I could look extremely foolish?! Oh well here goes: my feeling is that the Cypriot crisis will fade from memory over the next few weeks and won't lead to wider Eurozone contagion. There - I've said it.

Ben Harrison

Director of Partnerships at Centre for Cities, the first port of call for for independent research and policy analysis on UK city economies

As well as targeting specific funds to get stalled schemes in our most buoyant cities moving, we need to see more autonomy for cities to drive investment in new housing. By removing the restrictions on councils' ability to borrow money against their existing housing assets to invest in new housing, industry experts suggest councils could borrow an additional £2.8bn to invest in new housing.