In an ideal world, Google should be paying more in tax, but don't hold your breath when international agreement is the only state-based solution. Instead, public pressure is the strongest force to persuade companies that it is in their interests to make a 'moral' contribution in tax.

So Messrs Branson et al, go back and do your sums. Your signatories to this letter are fighting their self-interested corporatist corner. The big energy companies are well-represented in your letter, along with others who have contracts with government or are taxpayer bailed out companies.

The rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is an expression of frustration with the establishment political parties in not creating jobs, ceding home rule to the European Union while fostering growing disorder in large sections of the population.

The BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - have decided to set up their own development bank to rival the World Bank. This initiative is not happening in a vacuum.

Mother's Day, in its present form, is merely a another capitalist-patriarchal tool to beat women over the head with. It remains nothing more than a depressing attempt at brain-washing women into believing that 'their' work is valued. Women's work has never been valued. We still do the majority of the childcare and housework whilst in paid employment.

I am the most fervent anti-smoker and anything that stops people puffing on the filthy cancer sticks is great by me. I have never touched a cigarette so I am not a reformed holier-than-thou ex-smoker. Yet, I find that the EU is interfering again by trying to regulate e-cigarettes.

Brussels is wrong to cap bankers' bonuses, just as it was wrong to propose a financial transactions tax a few months ago. Its thinking, however, is along the right lines; having failed to manage their businesses responsibly, bankers need to be kept on a tight leash.

Increasingly we are living in world dominated by money and acquisition of material assets. If you are stand against this ideology business the media and politicians are likely to be lining up to persecute you.

Capitalism is indeed in crisis today. We need a way forward. This requires that our gleeful bashers take a breath and back off. For this to happen, free marketeers need to step up.

Capitalism needs to be reconstructed or rather reconsidered in light of the successes it has had in the past, in order to ensure its future as the answer to the problems of the global economy today.

We will never find true happiness through GDP growth alone. To love and be loved - is what ultimately sustains us; all spiritual traditions tell us so and humanists would agree.