Dr Richard Wellings

Deputy Editorial Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs

George Osborne continues to make the same error he made in previous budgets. He is assuming the British economy will return to robust growth from 2014 onwards and that this will deliver the higher tax revenues needed to achieve his deficit reduction plan.

Adam Afriyie

Conservative MP for Windsor

I am not advocating that the government drops all the austerity measures, starts borrowing huge amounts of money and cuts personal tax rates for the rich. But we do need to focus on the things we know will give our economy the boost it so desperately needs so that people have more money to spend to help our economy grow.

Professor Klaus Dodds and Dr Alasdair Pinkerton

Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London

The legacy of the referendum will be much more difficult to predict than the voting itself. For the Falkland Islanders, they have both reaffirmed the status quo but also prepared the ground for possible future referenda, which might one day include independence as an option.

Julia Unwin

Julia Unwin is Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), the independent anti-poverty charity

We all know that the Chancellor has limited room for manoeuvre. All the signs are this is going to be a cautious budget, maintaining the overall direction of government policy.

Dan Gregory

Head of Policy at Social Enterprise UK

So George Osborne has lost his treasured AAA rating. We are now heading for record consecutive quarters of stop-start growth. Youth unemployment is at an all-time high. Neither the deficit nor the debt is coming down and there's no money to do anything about it. If we want to spend more we have to borrow more, and even Ed Balls can't be sure we'll end up better off if we do.

Cathy Corrie

Researcher at Reform

The sad truth is that the UK government has been running deficits for over a decade. General gross debt rose from 37% of GDP in 2001-02 to 44% of GDP in 2007-08 when strong growth should have led to healthy surpluses. Years of unsustainable discretionary spending and tax policies have left a ticking time bomb at the heart of the public finances.

Clare Pelham

Chief Executive at Leonard Cheshire Disability

There's been a lot of chatter in recent days about the budget. But it has lacked passion. It has utterly failed to engage the great British public. Why is this?

Olly Lennard

Student comedian, actor and writer

After much toing and froing a deal has finally been struck between the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party regarding press regulation. Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband's proposal has been scrapped, and both have claimed a substantial victory.

Nick Abbot

LBC 97.3 talk show host, DJ and writer.

It will be a big week for the Drear Leader. It started at the Conservative Party's spring conference. This is a chance for the PM to give a speech that the news media will put at the top of their bulletins and on the front pages of their papers, unless something more important comes up, like the commencement of all-out thermonuclear war, or Justin Bieber gets a haircut.

Helena Herklots

Chief Executive of Carers UK, the charity supporting the 6.5 million people in the UK who care for an ill, frail or disabled friend or family member

Disabled people may be unable to share a room with their husband, wife or partner, simply because their disability causes pain and discomfort which means neither of them can sleep properly. They might be unable to share a room if assistive equipment disrupts sleep.

Carla Buzasi

Carla Buzasi is editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post UK

Where did you find out about the new Pope? Chances are it wasn't a newspaper. New figures out this week confirmed what most of us know already: the majority of us get our news online today (yesterday too, in fact) and are purchasing papers in ever decreasing numbers. Only 71% of men and women under 24 have read a daily newspaper in the past year. And the paper they read in the highest numbers is the Metro, so they're not parting with cash even when print does provide their daily view of the news.

Neil Scott

Lefty blogger who is based in Scotland and who supports the movement for an Independent Scotland.

Does Comic Relief and other celeb driven telethons "upstream?" Do they find the source of the flood and turn off the tap or are they ego driven mop up jobs?

Dr Simon Duffy

Director of The Centre for Welfare Reform

Welfare Myth Number 1 is that the benefit system is expensive. When politicians want to frighten us they add together the cost of all benefits and pensions and get a staggering figure of £180 billion.

Malik Al-Abdeh

Freelance Syrian journalist

At long last, a policy on Syria that makes sense. This week, prime minister David Cameron indicated that Britain was ready to bypass an EU arms embargo and deliver arms to Syria's opposition fighters - much to the horror I expect of Bashar Assad.

Charles Shoebridge

Security analyst and former counter terrorism intelligence officer

The officially stated UK government rationale justifying arming Syria's rebels relies upon at least two flawed assumptions. The first is that pouring sophisticated weaponry into a war zone already awash with weapons will save civilian lives.

Darren Caplan

Chief Executive of the Airport Operators Association

When he gets up to deliver his Budget next Wednesday, the Chancellor could use just ten words that would start to get us on the right path: "I have decided to cancel the planned increase in Air Passenger Duty".